THE  GIFT  OF 

MAY  TREAT  MORRISON 

IN  MFMORY  OF 

ALEXANDER  F  MORRISON 


CONTEIiTTS 


2  757 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

XIII.— The  Grand  CaSJon  war 135 

xrv.— Incidents  of  the  early  days        .       .       .  158 
XV.— The  Denver  and  Rio  Grande        .        .        .171 

XVI.— The  Northern  Pacific 179 

XVII.— The  Canadian  Pacific 197 

XVIII.— Road  making  in  Mexico 213 

XIX. — The  opening  of  Oklahoma      ....  223 

XX. — The  railroad  engineer 231 

XXI.— At  the  front 241 

XXII.— The  railroad  and  the  people      .       .        .  254 

XXIII. — The  beginnings  of  the  express  business   .  261 

XXIV.— The  West  to-day 271 


The  BaUroad.  II. 


l\CL 


Builders  of  the  Nation 

OR 
From  the  Indian  Trail  to  the  Railroad 


National  Edition 
Complete  in  Twelve  Volumes 


o 

^        CD 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTEATIOIS'S 


Scene  in  a  railroad  camp — Making  a  tenderfoot 

DANCE Frontispiece 

From  an  Original  Paintiag  by  Frank  T.  Johnson 

PAGE 

Holding  the  caSJon 143 

The  Royal  Gorge,  Colorado 177 

"S  "-Trestle  on  Cceur  d'Alene  branch     .       .       .181 

Viaduct  construction 193 

A  phase  of  bridge  construction         .       .        ,        .  210 

In  the  mountains 231 

The  rush  for  dinner 243 

Monument  to  Oakes  Ames  at  Sherman,  Wyoming   .  260 

Map—Transcontinental  railroads,  1898    .       .       .  272 

The  Railroad.  II. 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE    GRAND   CANON    WAR. 

Because  the  same  conditions  can  never  exist  again, 
there  will  probably  never  be  another  railroad  war  in 
this  country  to  compare  with  the  battle  between  the 
Denver  and  Eio  Grande  Railroad  and  the  Atchison, 
Topeka  and  Santa  Fe  Company  for  the  possession  of 
the  Grand  Canon  of  the  Arkansas — the  Royal  Gorge. 
To  be  sure,  this  war  was  only  an  incident  in  the  mak- 
ing of  the  railroad,  and  was  not  taken  into  considera- 
tion by  the  projectors  of  either  of  the  roads  that  after- 
wards became  so  actively  interested;  but  it  did  take 
place,  has  gone  into  the  history  of  the  West,  and  is 
therefore  a  part  of  the  story  of  the  railroad.  There 
is  no  evidence  that  either  company  contemplated  the 
building  of  a  line  through  the  Grand  Canon  of  the 
Arkansas  until  the  mineral  resources  of  Colorado  began 
to  attract  the  attention  of  the  mining  world. 

The  discovery  and  development  of  the  silver  mines 
in  and  about  Leadville,  and  the  consequent  increasing 
business  between  that  region  and  the  East,  determined 
the  Atchison,  Topeka  and  Santa  Fe  Company  to  ex- 
tend its  road  to  that  city.  The  rates  on  freight  were  a 
deciding  temptation  to  this  expenditure,  being  four 
cents  per  pound  by  team  from  Canon  City  to  Leadville, 

185 


136  llTBi:  STORY  .0;PTHB  RAILROAD. 

a  distaiiceiaf  oae.  hiindred  and-tv^enty  miles^  amounting 
to  a  iittie 'more  than 'the  •  charges  from  Kew  York  to 
Canon  City,  a  distance  of  over  two  thousand  miles. 
The  Denver  and  Eio  Grande  Company  woke  up  to  the 
importance  of  this  connection  at  about  the  same  time, 
and  decided  to  push  its  rails  from  Caiion  City  into  the 
great  mining  region.  As  there  was  but  one  available 
route  through  the  mountains,  the  caiion  cut  by  the 
Arkansas  Kiver  in  its  wild  dash  from  the  summit  of 
the  Eockies  down  to  the  Kansas  prairies,  it  was  a  matter 
of  importance  to  each  of  the  contestants  to  secure  its 
possession.  There  are  canons  and  caiions,  some  barely 
the  width  of  a  railroad  track,  and  some  broad  enough 
for  the  traffic  of  a  country,  but  the  caiion  of  the 
Arkansas  for  twelve  miles  west  of  Canon  City  was  of 
the  first  character,  especially  through  the  Koyal  Gorge, 
where  for  miles  the  rocks  rise  thirty-five  hundred  feet, 
making  an  absolutely  perpendicular  wall  on  either  side 
of  a  river  which  finds  less  than  fifty  feet  for  a  passage 
at  their  base.  Consequently  the  possession  of  this 
pass  was  a  condition  of  success,  and  to  hold  it  was  the 
object  of  the  struggle  now  begun. 

No  move  was  made  for  some  time  by  either  party 
to  take  actual  possession  of  the  caiion,  until  on  the 
17th  of  April,  1878,  Mr.  Strong,  concluding  that  longer 
delay  would  prejudice  the  plans  of  his  company,  if  not 
render  tlieir  accomplishment  impossible,  directed  Mr. 
A.  A.  Eobinson,  chief  engineer,  to  take  immediate 
action.  The  Atchison,  Topeka  and  Santa  Fe  was  then 
building  from  La  Junta,  on  its  main  line,  southerly 
through  Colorado,  and  over  the  Eaton  Mountain,  as 
filn-ady  deBcribed,  into  New  Mexico,  on  its  way  to  the 


THE  GRAND  CANON  WAR.  137 

Pacific  coast,  then  many  hundred  miles  distant.  The 
nearest  engineering  station  was  at  Deep  Kock,  a  point 
on  the  new  line  some  fifty  miles  south  of  Eocky  Ford 
on  the  main  line,  its  nearest  railroad  or  telegraph  point. 
A  messenger  was  dispatched  on  horseback  from  Eocky 
Ford,  bearing  to  the  engineer  in  charge  at  Deep  Eock 
the  order  to  leave  whatever  work  he  had  on  hand  and 
go  direct  to  Canon  City,  with  men  enough  to  take  pos- 
session of  the  canon  and  hold  it,  and  to  do  this  without 
a  moment's  delay.  W.  E.  Morley,  the  engineer  in 
charge  of  construction  at  El  Moro,  in  Colorado,  was 
sent  to  relieve  the  Deep  Eock  engineer,  but,  upon 
reaching  Eocky  Ford,  found  that  the  other  man  had 
failed  to  receive,  or  at  all  events  to  carry  out,  his 
instructions. 

Not  a  great  deal  had  been  said  to  Mr.  Morley.  His 
instructions  were  to  go  to  Deep  Eock,  and  the  canon 
had  been  discussed  only  incidentally,  but  he  instinc- 
tively comprehended  the  situation  and  turned  west- 
ward. He  asked  for  an  engine  to  take  him  back  to 
Pueblo,  reaching  that  place  late  in  the  evening  of 
April  18th.*  Here  he  learned  that  a  large  force  of 
Denver  and  Eio  Grande  men,  with  a  complete  construc- 
tion outfit,  had  gone  west  by  the  night  train,  under 
orders  to  take  possession  of  the  canon  on  the  following 
morning.  If  he  could  reach  Canon  City,  where  the 
people  were  in  sympathy  with  the  Santa  Fe,  as  they 
were  at  Trinidad  and  other  small  places  that  the  Eio 
Grande  had  ignored,  establishing  new  ones,  he  could 

*  These  dates  are  important  only  to  those  who  care  to  follow 
the  legal  arguments  and  decisions  of  the  courts  based  upon  the 
dates  of  possession  of  the  canon. 


138  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

raise  a  force  sufficient  to  hold  the  caiion  against  Gen- 
eral Palmer's  men.  But  Canon  City  was  forty  miles 
away,  and  the  Eio  Grande  was  the  only  line  that 
reached  there.  It  was  striking  midnight  in  the  dance 
hall.  There  was  a  livery  stable  close  by.  Fifteen  min- 
utes later  Morley  was  leaning  forward  in  the  seat  of  a 
stout  mountain  buckboard,  behind  the  best  team  that 
could  be  had  in  Pueblo,  uncertain  whether  his  trip 
would  end  at  his  wished-for  destination,  or  under  the 
torrent  of  the  Arkansas  Eiver,  by  the  bank  of  which 
his  rough  road  lay.  He  did  not  spare  the  horses  nor 
carefully  pick  his  way.  Not  knowing  that  they  were 
being  pursued,  the  Eio  Grande  force  would  probably 
use  the  night  in  making  the  run,  for  the  road  was  new 
and  rough,  and  the  load  heavy  for  the  little  six- 
wheeled  locomotive.  Where  the  river  appeared  to  in- 
dulge in  unnecessary  curves,  he  cut  them  and  plunged 
into  the  stream.  Occasionally  a  coyote  or  mountain 
lion  would  hurry  from  the  trail  as  the  reckless  driver 
dashed  along.  When  day  dawned  his  horses  were  white 
with  foam,  but  still  he  urged  them  on. 

As  the  sun  rose  above  Pike's  Peak  and  spattered 
its  glory  against  the  Greenhorn  range,  the  plucky  driver 
was  still  pushing  on  for  the  front.  Somewhere  in  the 
curves  of  the  broad  valley  he  must  have  passed  the 
other  outfit.  At  times  he  fancied  that  he  could  hear 
the  sharp  screams  of  the  little  locomotive  rounding  the 
countless  curves,  turning  in  and  out  like  a  squealing 
pig  following  the  worm  of  a  rail  fence.  For  the  first 
time  it  seemed  to  him  that  his  horses  began  to  fail. 
Their  feet  were  heavy,  they  stumbled  and  fell  to  their 
knees,  but,  responding  to  the  touch  of  the  whip,  got  to 


THE  GRAND  CA^ON  WAR.  139 

their  feet  and  galloped  on.  The  new  energy  put  into 
them  by  a  vigorous  use  of  the  lash  was  short-lived, 
like  the  effect  of  champagne,  and  again  the  bronchos 
showed  unmistakable  signs  of  exhaustion.  There  were 
the  adobe  houses  of  Caiion  City.  They  seemed  in  the 
clear  morning  atmosphere  within  a  stone's  throw,  but 
in  reality  they  were  three  miles  away.  Now  the  wild 
scream  of  the  little  locomotive  broke  the  stillness  of 
the  narrow  vale,  and  went  wailing  and  crying  in  the 
crags  up  the  canon.  A  moment  later  Morley  entered 
the  town,  side  by  side  with  the  wheezy  little  engine 
and  its  train  of  twenty  tri-penny  cars  behind  it,  which 
ran  up  to  the  station  all  unconscious  that  it  had  run 
a  race  of  forty  miles  against  a  man  and  a  team,  and  had 
lost  the  race. 

Passing  unrecognised  by  the  crowd,  Morley  reached 
the  office  of  the  president  of  the  local  company  (the 
Canon  City  and  San  Juan  Eailroad  Company),  under 
whose  charter  the  Santa  Fe  was  operating  in  Colorado, 
and  demanded  from  him  authority  to  occupy  the  pass 
on  behalf  of  his  railroad.  While  the  papers  were  being 
made  out,  he  saw  two  Denver  and  Eio  Grande  con- 
tractors approaching  the  office.  Passing  out  by  the 
back  door,  Morley  saw  a  shovel  branded  "  D.  &.  R.  G." 
leaning  lazily  against  a  post  to  which  a  saddle  horse 
was  tied.  Securing  the  shovel,  he  cut  the  reins  and 
rode  like  the  wind  for  the  canon,  still  two  miles  beyond 
the  town,  determined  to  hold  it  against  all  comers. 
No  one  was  there  to  oppose  his  entrance;  the  other 
crowd,  knowing  nothing  of  the  race  nor  of  his  pres- 
ence, and  not  anticipating  any  opposition,  were  mov- 
ing as  leisurely  as  an  army  through  a  subjugated  coun- 


140  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

try.  But  Morley  was  there  with  his  shovel,  eommenc- 
ing  the  work  of  building  the  railroad.  One  shovelful 
of  dirt  over  his  shoulder  or  twenty — what  matter? 
The  construction  of  the  Canon  City  and  San  Juan 
Eailroad  was  begun. 

President  Clelland,  not  being  able  to  recruit  many 
assistants  at  so  early  an  hour,  followed  Mr.  Morley  in 
a  few  minutes  with  only  half  a  dozen  friends,  but  all 
bearing  the  arguments  which  were  then  most  respected 
in  that  country.  They  had  hardly  reached  the  canon 
when  the  Denver  and  Eio  Grande  forces,  two  hundred 
strong,  appeared  at  the  entrance.  Laughing  at  the 
little  force  which  barred  the  pass,  and  not  suspecting 
who  was  the  leader,  they  ordered  them  out  of  the  way 
at  the  peril  of  their  lives.  Mr.  Morley  stepped  to  the 
front,  and  quietly  responded  that  he  was  there  as  the 
representative  of  the  Canon  City  and  San  Juan  Kail- 
road,  that  he  had  taken  possession  of  the  canon  in  the 
name  and  behalf  of  that  company,  that  work  of  con- 
etruction  was  already  begun,  and  that,  having  taken 
possession  and  begun  work,  he  would  hold  the  canon 
against  any  and  all  opposition  that  offered.  Any 
attempt  to  force  him  out  would  be  met  by  his  re- 
volver and  the  arms  of  his  friends,  and  their  blood 
would  be  on  the  heads  of  those  who  attempted  to 
drive  them  out. 

From  another  man,  backed  by  so  small  a  force, 
these  heroics  would  have  inspired  but  little  respect, 
but  these  men  knew  Morley.  They  knew  also  that  if 
they  had  been  first  in  the  field,  they  would  have  made 
use  of  the  same  weapons  and  arguments  as  he  was  now 
using.    So  they  left  him  and  his  small  army  in  pos- 


THE  GRAND  CANON  WAR.  141 

session,  moved  farther  westward,  and  took  an  uncon- 
tested stand  some  miles  farther  up  the  canon.  Thus 
commenced  the  struggle  carried  on  with  violence  and 
bloodshed,  lawsuits  and  injunctions,  writs  and  coun- 
terwrits  without  number — an  internecine  war,  which 
raged  during  the  next  two  years  with  only  brief  inter- 
vals of  peace. 

Morley,  the  engineer  who  had  been  bold  enough 
to  disregard  orders,  take  matters  in  his  own  hands, 
and  to  capture  and  hold  the  pass,  now  became  the 
hero  of  the  Santa  Fe.  Mr.  Strong,  then  general  man- 
ager and  afterward  president  of  the  Atchison,  Topeka 
and  Santa  Fe,.  gave  the  daring  engineer  a  gold- 
mounted  rifle  as  a  slight  token  of  his  appreciation  of 
what  he  had  done. 

A  braver  man  than  Morley  never  located  a  line. 
He  was  full  of  the  fire  that  burns  in  the  breast  of  the 
truly  heroic.  No  knight  ever  battled  for  his  king  with 
a  more  loyal  heart  or  with  less  fear  than  Morley  fought 
for  his  chief. 

To  be  sure,  neither  General  Palmer,  president  of 
the  Eio  Grande,  nor  Mr.  Strong  believed  for  a  moment 
that  this  great  controversy  could  ever  be  permanently 
settled  by  violent  means,  and  after  the  first  brush,  in 
which  the  Eio  Grande  got  the  worst  of  it,  they  turned 
to  the  courts. 

Although  the  arming  and  marching  of  a  body  of 
men  across  the  country  was  in  open  violation  of  the 
laws  of  the  State,  nobody  paid  any  attention  to  that 
matter.  They  were  simply  playing  for  position. 
None  of  the  men  engaged  in  the  warlike  demonstration 
was  censured  by  the  railroad  officers.    On  the  contrary, 


14:2  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

they  were  applauded  and  in  some  cases  rewarded  for 
their  loyalty. 

The  many  legal  battles  fought  out  in  the  courts 
were  as  interesting,  if  not  as  exciting,  as  the  unlawful 
contests  that  were  going  on  in  the  canon.  The  mil- 
lions of  money  involved,  the  splendid  array  of  legal 
talent,  and  the  fevered  excitement  of  the  people,  made 
it  the  greatest  case  ever  tried  in  the  courts  of  Colorado. 

At  this  juncture  a  great  misfortune  overtook  the 
Rio  Grande — one  that  caused  the  failure  of  many  a 
deserving  enterprise  and  many  a  worthy  man.  They 
were  without  money,  and  were  forced,  through  pov- 
erty, to  compromise. 

In  the  last  hour,  if  not  at  the  last  minute,  of  the 
13th  day  of  December,  1878,  General  Palmer,  as  the 
executive  officer  of  the  Denver  and  Rio  Grande,  leased 
and  transferred  to  the  Santa  Fe  Company  the  three 
hundred  or  four  hundred  miles  of  narrow-gauge  road 
then  owned  and  operated  by  his  company.  The  Santa 
Fe  was  regarded  as  a  Kansas  line,  while  the  Rio 
Grande  was  purely  a  Colorado  road.  The  former,  hav- 
ing Kansas  City  as  its  starting  point,  was  interested 
in  building  up  the  wholesale  and  jobbing  trade,  and  in 
making  Kansas  City  the  base  of  supplies  and  general 
distributing  point  for  the  growing  West. 

The  owners  of  the  Denver  and  Rio  Grande,  as  well 
as  the  people  of  northern  Colorado,  were  not  long  in 
discovering  the  plans  of  the  Santa  Fe,  and  the  former 
at  once  set  about  to  find  an  excuse  for  breaking  the 
lease. 

What  is  now  the  main  line  of  the  Rio  Grande  was 
then  completed  to  Canon  City,  and  as  the  Santa  Fe 


Holding  the  cafiou. 


THE  GRAND  CA^ON  WAK.  143 

people  had  a  line  of  their  own  to  the  coal  fields  a 
few  miles  below  the  canon,  they  renewed  the  fight  for 
a  sure  and  permanent  outlet  through  this  valuable  and 
only  passable  pass  to  Leadville  and  the  Pacific.  Be- 
ing in  possession  of  the  constructed  line,  they  began, 
the  work  of  paralleling  the  Rio  Grande  by  grading  a 
way  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river.  This  old  grade 
can  still  be  seen  from  the  car  windows  all  the  way 
from  the  mouth  of  the  canon  to  the  Eoyal  Gorge. 

In  March,  1879,  the  Santa  Fe  reopened  the  fight 
by  demanding  that  it  be  allowed  to  examine  the  books 
kept  in  Palmer's  office,  which  the  latter  refused.  With 
the  coming  of  spring  the  rival  companies  resumed 
their  arms,  and,  after  the  fashion  of  hostile  Indians, 
went  on  the  warpath  again.  Armed  forces  occupied 
the  canon  and  built  forts  like  cliff-dwellers,  at  the 
top  of  the  walls.  The  Eio  Grande  people  were  exas- 
perated— almost  desperate.  The  fact  that  Rio  Grande 
bonds  had  gone  up  since  the  lease  from  forty-five  to 
ninety  cents,  and  that  stock  that  was  worthless  was  sell- 
ing at  sixteen  cents,  did  not  appease  the  Palmerites. 
The  Santa  Fe  had  shut  them  out  at  the  south,  crossed 
Eaton  Pass,  and  gone  on  to  the  Pacific.  They  were 
preparing  systematically  to  ruin  the  Eio  Grande  by 
building  into  all  her  territory,  even  to  Colorado 
Springs,  Leadville,  and  Denver.  General-Manager 
Dodge  declared  that  the  terms  of  the  lease  had  been 
broken  by  the  Santa  Fe  before  the  ink  was  dry  upon 
the  paper.  General  Palmer  openly  asserted  that  the 
Santa  Fe  had  mismanaged  the  road  and  diverted  traffic, 
and  that  it  was  endeavouring  to  wreck  the  property. 
Mr.  Strong  claimed,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  books 


14:4:  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

of  the  Eio  Grande  had  been  spirited  away  by  the  treas- 
urer, and  that  he  had  a  right  to  see  them. 

On  the  21st  of  April  the  Supreme  Court  rendered 
a  decision,  giving  the  Eio  Grande  the  prior  right  of 
way  through  the  canon,  but  not  the  exclusive  right. 
It  was  finally  determined  upon  this  occasion  that  no 
company  of  railroad  builders  could  pre-empt,  occupy, 
and  hold  against  all  comers  the  narrow  passes  or  gorges 
in  the  mountains. 

The  Rio  Grande  people  were  able  to  persuade  the 
Supreme  Court  at  Washington  that  they  had  located  in 
the  canon  just  one  day  ahead  of  their  rival.  Hall's  his- 
tory of  Colorado  leaves  this  impression  in  the  reader's 
mind.  The  historian  was  probably  following  the  Su- 
preme Court,  which  in  this  case  seems  to  have  been  in 
error.  It  has  been  said  that  Judge  Harlan  saw  his 
mistake  after  it  had  been  made,  but,  like  the  driver  of 
a  new  locomotive,  the  Supreme  Court  dislikes  to  re- 
verse— it  is  hard  on  the  machinery. 

The  Denver  and  Eio  Grande  Company  had  in  its 
favour  a  special  act  of  Congress,  enacted  in  1873, 
granting  it  right  of  way  through  the  public  lands.  In 
1871,  and  also  in  1872,  it  had  made  some  surveys 
through  the  Grand  Caiion,  but  of  a  purely  prelimi- 
nary character.  The  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States  in  the  case  of  the  Denver  and  Eio 
Grande  Company  against  the  Caiion  City  and  San 
Juan  Company,  as  delivered  by  Justice  Harlan,  was 
to  the  effect  that  this  special  act  of  1872  gave  it  a 
present  right  through  the  canon,  capable  of  enjoy- 
ment, though,  only  when  the  right  of  way  should  actu- 
ally and  in  good  faith  be  appropriated;  and  he  held 


THE  GRAKD  CANON  WAR.  145 

further  that  this  appropriation  was  accomplished  on 
the  night  of  April  19,  1878 — ^that  is  to  say,  he  dated 
the  actual  occupancy  of  the  Denver  and  Rio  Grande 
Company  from  the  night  of  April  19,  1878,  and  stated 
that  evidence  of  the  Atchison  Company's  activity  in 
that  direction  was  found  in  the  fact  that  on  the  morn- 
ing of  the  20th — as  early  as  four  o'clock — some  of 
its  employees,  nine  or  ten  in  number,  in  charge  of  an 
assistant  engineer,  swam  the  Arkansas  River  and  took 
possession  of  the  canon  for  the  Santa  Fe.  He  further 
decided  that  the  surveys  of  the  Rio  Grande  Company, 
made  in  1871  and  1872,  although  very  defective  and 
not  equivalent  to,  an  actual  location,  were  quite  as 
complete  and  extended  as  the  survey  which  the  Caiion 
City  Company  had  made  in  1877.*  A  dissenting 
opinion  was  filed  by  Chief-Justice  Waite,  in  which  he 
declared  that  the  Atchison  Company  had  made  the 
first  permanent  location  through  the  canon  with  a 
view  to  actual  construction. 

Shortly  after  this  decision  had  been  announced  by 
Judge  Harlan,  one  of  the  Santa  Fe  attorneys  wrote  to 
him  and  called  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  evi- 
dence failed  entirely  to  support  his  view  of  the  events 
that  transpired  on  the  night  of  April  19th  and  the 
morning  of  April  20th.  Justice  Harlan  wrote  him  in 
reply  to  the  effect  that  the  important  considerations  in 
his  mind  were  the  grant  to  the  Denver  and  Rio  Grande 
Company  in  1872,  the  early  surveys  that  Company 
had  made,  and  the  period  of  financial  depression  that 

*  The  opinion  of  Judge  Harlan  is  found  in  99  U.  S.  Reports, 
p.  463. 


146  THE  STORY  OP  THE  RAILROAD. 

had  delayed  the  construction  for  the  years  intervening 
between  that  time  and  1878. 

The  peculiar  features  of  this  litigation  are,  that 
when  the  case  was  decided  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  the  Santa  Fe  people  were  in  control  of 
the  Denver  and  Eio  Grande  Company,  and  held  prac- 
tically all  its  capital  stock,  and  that  the  Supreme 
Court  in  its  opinion  left  the  matter  to  be  determined 
in  supplemental  proceedings  whether  the  trade  made 
with  the  Kio  Grande  Company,  by  which  the  Santa 
Fe  acquired  control  of  it,  was  intended  to  put  an  end 
to  the  litigation  over  the  canon.  In  the  negotiations 
between  General  Palmer  and  President  Nickerson 
nothing  had  been  said  in  express  terms  about  this. 
Each  seems  to  have  carefully  avoided  touching  on  the 
subject,  and  in  all  the  papers  by  which  the  Atchison 
Company  acquired  the  stock  of  the  Rio  Grande  Com- 
pany and  a  lease  of  the  road,  etc.,  there  was  not  a 
word  which  threw  any  light  on  the  question  of  the  dis- 
continuance of  the  litigation  over  the  canon. 

The  Rio  Grande  was  at  last  victorious,  but  the  road 
was  still  in  the  hands  of  the  enemy,  and  would  remain 
there  for  thirty  years  unless  the  Supreme  Court  would 
set  aside  the  lease. 

The  matter  of  cancelling  the  lease  now  came  before 
the  courts.  This  was  urged  by  the  Rio  Grande,  backed 
by  the  best  legal  talent  that  money  could  secure. 
Meanwhile  the  two  armies  in  the  mountains  were  being 
increased  and  the  forts  enlarged.  In  the  midst  of  all 
the  excitement,  Attorney-General  Wright  added  to  the 
confusion  by  entering  suit  to  enjoin  the  Santa  Fe 
Company  from  operating  railroads  in  Colorado.    The 


THE  GRAND  CA??ON  WAR.  I47 

hearing  was  had  before  Judge  Bowen,  afterward 
senator  from  Colorado,  across  the  Sangre  de  Christo, 
in  the  little  town  of  Alamosa.  Willard  Teller,  for  the 
Santa  Fe,  promptly  applied  for  a  change  of  venue, 
alleging,  in  language  that  could  not  be  misunderstood, 
that  the  judge  was  prejudiced  against  his  clients,  and 
that  he  could  not  hope  to  get  justice  in  such  a  court. 
It  was  not  to  be  supposed  that  a  man  who  played  poker, 
as  Judge  Bowen  did,  would  lie  down  at  Mr.  Teller's 
first  fire.  He  led  off  with  a  spirited  rejoinder  to  the 
attorney's  attack,  and  ended  by  issuing  a  writ  enjoin- 
ing the  Santa  Fe  and  all  its  officers,  agents,  and  em- 
ployees from  operating  the  Eio  Grande  road  or  any 
part  thereof,  and  from  exercising  in  any  manner  cor- 
porate rights  in  the  State  of  Colorado.  In  short,  he 
turned  the  road  over  to  the  owners. 

Mr.  Teller  commanded  the  conductor  of  one  of  the 
trains  then  lying  at  the  terminus  of  the  track  to  "  hitch 
up  "  and  take  him  to  Denver  with  all  possible  speed. 
The  employees  had,  of  course,  watched  all  the  lawful 
and  unlawful  contests  as  closely  as  the  higher  officers, 
and  were  ready  to  take  sides  with  their  former  em- 
ployers; and  so  the  conductor,  who  had  heard  Judge 
Bowen's  decision,  refused  to  leave  before  schedule  time. 
This  conductor  secured  a  copy  of  the  writ,  and,  fear- 
ing a  hold-up  671  route,  placed  it  in  his  boot  and  pulled 
out  for  Denver. 

At  Palmer  Lake,  when  within  fifty-two  miles  of 
Denver,  this  enterprising  conductor  gave  additional 
evidence  of  his  loyalty  to  Messrs.  Dodge  and  Palmer 
by  slipping  out  and  disabling  the  locomotive.  He  re- 
moved one  of  the  main  rods  (they  were  not  so  heavy 


148  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

then  as  they  are  now)  and  threw  it  into  the  lake.  He 
must  have  done  more,  for  that,  unless  he  had  "  seen  " 
the  engineer,  would  not  prevent  the  engine,  still  hav- 
ing one  side  connected,  from  taking  the  train  in. 
After  crippling  the  engine,  the  conductor  boarded  a 
push-car  (hand  car  without  handles),  stood  up,  spread 
out  his  rain  coat  to  make  a  sail,  and  was  pushed  by  the 
west  wind  down  the  long  slope  into  Denver,  while 
Attorney  Teller  sat  in  the  delayed  train  at  the  summit 
and  swore. 

It  would  seem  that  the  Eio  Grande  was  not  content 
with  all  the  advantage  it  held  in  the  courts,  but  was 
still  increasing  its  armed  force  in  the  Grand  Canon, 
where  J.  R.  Deremer,  one  of  the  engineers,  blocked 
the  trail  with  a  force  of  fifty  men. 

"  By  what  authority,"  demanded  the  Santa  Fe  men, 
looking  into  the  fifty  rifles,  "  do  you  hold  this  pass?  " 

"  By  the  authority  of  the  Supreme  Court  and  the 
fifty  men  behind  me,"  was  Deremer's  reply. 

The  action  of  the  regular  officers  and  employees  of 
the  two  roads  was  prompted  by  a  sense  of  loyalty  to 
their  respective  employers,  but  the  common  herd  which 
took  service  did  so  simply  for  the  pay  of  five  dollars  a 
day,  and  had  no  higher  interest  in  the  contest.  Some- 
times tlie  camps  of  the  opposing  armies  were  close  to- 
gether; sometimes  the  officers  and  men  met,  mingled 
and  mixed  toddy  under  the  same  cedar. 

If  President  Strong  of  tbe  Santa  Fe  had  realized 
the  seriousness  of  the  situation,  or,  it  were  better  to 
say,  if  he  had  been  less  considerate  and  humane,  he 
might,  by  weeding  out  the  old  'Rio  Grande  agents  and 
employees  and  replacing  them  with  men  in  sympathy 


THE  GRAND  CANON  WAR.  149 

with  his  company,  have  put  himself  in  a  stronger  posi- 
tion for  what  was  to  follow;  but,  to  his  credit,  he 
allowed  the  old  men,  whose  only  offense  to  the  new 
regime  was  their  loyalty  to  the  old,  to  remain.  Al- 
though the  Santa  Fe  people  appear  to  have  paid  no 
heed  to  the  attitude  of  the  employees  along  the  leased 
line,  the  Denver  and  Eio  Grande  people  did,  and  upon 
the  loyalty  of  their  old  men  they  risked  everything. 

The  Santa  Fe  managers,  however,  were  not  idle. 
They  had,  located  on  the  main  line,  a  camp  called 
Dodge  City,  as  rough  a  community  as  ever  flourished 
under  any  flag.  From  these  rich  recruiting  grounds 
they  imported  into  Colorado  a  string  of  slaughterers 
headed  by  "  Bat "  Masterson,  whose  hands  were  red 
with  the  blood  of  no  less  than  a  score  of  his  fellow-men. 
In  justice  to  Masterson,  the  explanation  should  be  made 
here  that  he  did  most  of  this  work  in  daylight,  with 
the  badge  of  a  "  city  marshal "  upon  his  unprotected 
breast,  and  that  a  good  majority  of  these  men  de- 
served killing,  but  had  been  neglected  by  more  timid 
officers  of  the  law,  wholly  on  account  of  their  tough- 
ness, their  familiarity  with  firearms,  and  an  overween- 
ing fondness  for  the  taking  off  of  city  marshals. 

There  was  not  a  man  on  either  side  who  would  not 
argue  that  his  company  was  wholly  in  the  right,  "  and," 
he  would  add,  resting  his  rifle  in  the  hollow  of  his  left 
arm,  "  proceeding  within  the  law."  For  example:  A 
big  Irishman  in  a  red  shirt  was  heard  to  say,  "  I'm  a 
law-abidin'  man,  an'  I  believe  in  lettin'  the  law  have 
its  course  at  all  times;  only  in  this  case  I  know  the 
Eio  Grande's  right,  an',  begorry,  I'll  fight  for  'em." 

Judge  Bowen's  decision  caused  the  greatest  con- 


150  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

fusion.  By  it  lie  directed  the  sheriffs  of  the  several 
counties  to  take  possession  of  the  Eio  Grande  property, 
and  they  began  to  serve  writs  upon  the  officers  and 
agents  along  the  line. 

On  the  night  of  June  10,  1879,  President  Palmer 
tapped  the  wires  on  either  side  of  the  station  at  Colo- 
rado Springs,  made  a  loop  through  his  residence,  and 
sat  all  night  listening  to  the  messages  sent  over  the  line 
by  the  Santa  Fe.  General  Dodge,  Mr.  Palmer's  general 
manager,  had  established  a  line  of  mounted  couriers, 
with  stations  every  twenty  miles  over  the  entire  road, 
for  they  must  not  attempt  to  use  the  telegraph.  By 
these  couriers  they  hoped  to  be  able  to  run  trains  until 
such  time  as  they  could  get  possession  of  the  telegraph 
offices. 

They  were  reasonably  sure  that  Judge  Hallett 
would  reverse  Judge  Bowen  on  the  11th,  and  so  the 
order  went  forth  to  Palmer's  people  and  to  the  sheriffs 
along  the  line  to  swoop  down  upon  the  enemy  at  6 
A.  M.  and  capture  the  road.  Accordingly,  on  the  morn- 
ing of  the  11th  a  posse,  under  a  sheriff,  armed  with  a 
Bowen  injunction,  marched  upon  the  station  at  East 
Denver  and  captured  it. 

At  West  Denver  the  station  was  found  locked,  but 
the  door  was  forced  and  an  operator  installed  at  the 
key.  To  and  from  along  the  line  the  mounted  couriers 
were  galloping  with  messages  from  General  Palmer  or 
Colonel  Dodge.  Up  from  the  south  came  ex-Governor 
A.  C.  Hunt,  another  Rio  Grande  general,  with  a  for- 
midable army  that  swept  everything  before  it  as  effec- 
tually as  did  the  army  of  Sherman  in  its  march  to  the 
sea.     The  Santa  Fe  people,  as  soon  as  they  learned 


THE  GRAND  CA5J0N  WAR.  151 

what  was  going  on,  concentrated  their  forces  at  Pueblo. 
That  important  point  they  had  determined  to  hold. 
Bat  Masterson,  with  his  imported  slayers,  was  in  pos- 
session of  the  stone  round-house,  and  all  Eio  Grande 
men  steered  clear  of  it.  The  Santa  Fe  people  had  for 
forty-eight  hours  been  urging  Governor  Pitkin  to  call 
out  the  State  troops,  but  the  Governor  said  that  he 
could  not  do  so  unless  there  was  some  demonstration  of 
unlawful  force,  and  even  then  the  sheriffs  must  first  ex- 
haust all  means  in  their  power  to  preserve  the  peace 
before  he  could  act. 

When  the  fight  was  once  on,  it  was  found  that  the 
Eio  Grande  men  were  in  need  of  restraint  instead  of 
encouragement.  Santa  Fe  employees  were  pulled 
from  their  cabs  and  beaten  into  a  state  of  obedience  to 
the  commands  of  the  Rio  Grande  officers.  Santa  Fe 
sympathizers  fought  as  fiercely,  only  they  appeared  to 
be  in  the  minority  at  all  points.  Under  the  direction 
of  General-Manager  Dodge  a  train  was  made  up  at 
Denver  to  start  south.  Manager  Kramer,  of  the  Adams 
Express  Company,  hung  his  messenger  about  with  six- 
shooters  and  locked  him  up  in  the  car.  Colonel  Dodge 
said  that  the  Rio  Grande  Company  would  run  the  ex- 
press business  from  now  on,  but,  to  avoid  delay, 
allowed  the  Adams  car  to  remain  in  the  train.  Presi- 
dent Strong,  with  his  horses  at  a  dead  run,  drove  from 
his  hotel  to  the  station,  where  Colonel  Dodge  was 
making  up  the  train,  and  all  the  people  of  the  town 
who  were  awake  ran  after  him,  expecting  that  upon 
his  arrival  at  the  station  the  shooting  would  surely 
begin.  Probably  at  no  time  in  their  lives,  before  nor 
since,  have  these  two  officers  known  such  a  trying 


152  THE  STORY  OP  THE  RAILROAD. 

moment,  but  they  were  too  wise  to  begin  themselves 
a  battle  which  they  knew  they  could  not  stop.  Finding 
Mr.  Dodge  in  possession  of  everything  in  sight,  Mr. 
Strong  made  a  rush  for  the  court. 

The  greatest  excitement  prevailed  among  the  em- 
ployees all  along  the  line.  Operators  at  small  stations 
knew  not  what  course  to  take.  At  some  of  the  stations 
the  agents  were  with  the  Santa  Fe,  and  these  made  it 
impossible  for  the  Eio  Grande  to  use  the  wire  for 
handling  their  trains. 

We  have  seen  by  the  character  and  voting  place  of 
the  men  employed  by.  the  Santa  Fe  that  Mr.  Strong 
was  desperately  in  earnest.  To  show  that  General 
Palmer  was  making  a  great  effort  to  avoid  mistakes,  I 
will  quote  from  a  letter  lately  received  from  a  promi- 
nent railroad  officer  who  was  in  the  fight: 

"  With  the  exception  of  about  half  a  dozen  em- 
ployees, the  men  were  all  in  sympathy  with  General 
Palmer,  and  desired  that  he  be  successful  in  his  efforts 
to  regain  possession  of  the  road;  and  as  each  train 
passed  Colorado  Springs,  up  to  midnight,  June  the 
10th,  as  the  trainmen  applied  at  the  Rio  Grande  head- 
quarters, which  were  then  located  at  Colorado  Springs, 
they  were  supplied  with  whatever  they  thought  would 
be  necessary  to  be  used  in  defending  their  trains  the 
next  day,  it  having  been  previously  arranged  that  pos- 
session would  be  taken  at  six  o'clock  on  the  following 
morning." 

It  is  safe  to  assume  that  thoy  asked  for  all  they 
Wiinfcd,  and  got  all  they  asked  for. 

By  the  time  the  first  train  pulled  out  of  Denver 
the  whole  State  was  swarming  with  armed  men.    But 


THE  GRAND  CANON  WAR.  15  3 

from  a  single  county,  Pueblo,  came  the  cry  of  a  sheriff 
who  had  been  unable  to  serve  the  Bowen  writ  and 
dislodge  the  Santa  Fe.  There  Masterson  held  not  only 
the  round-house,  but  the  station  and  oftices.  The  Rio 
Grande  forces  at  Pueblo  were  under  Chief-Engineer 
McMurtrie  and  R.  F.  Weitbrec,  treasurer  of  the  com- 
pany. 

Some  of  the  Rio  Grande  men  conceived  the  idea  of 
stealing  a  cannon  from  the  militia,  with  which  they 
might  batter  down  the  round-house  and  capture  the 
killers  therein,  but  found  at  the  last  moment  that  the 
cannon  had  already  been  stolen  by  the  gentlemen  on 
the  other  side.  It  was  even  asserted  that  it  was  within 
the  round-liouse  walls,  and  the  Rio  Grande  people 
moved  yet  a  little  space  away. 

Mr.  Weitbrec,  it  would  appear,  held  the  belief  that 
a  man  who  could  be  hired  by  an  entire  stranger  to  go 
out  and  slay  people  for  a  few  dollars  a  day  could  be 
seen,  and  so  went  over  to  the  round-house  to  see  Mas- 
terson. 

When  they  had  spoken  softly  together  for  a  spell, 
Bat  called  his  captain.  The  latter  presently  went  to 
the  lieutenant,  who  was  standing  at  the  other  end  of 
the  house  where  the  men  were  massed,  and  said: 

"  Say,  you  fellers,  drop  yer  heavy  guns,  keep  yer 
light  ones,  an'  slide." 

"What?"  said  the  lieutenant. 

"  You're  to  lay  down — 'is  nibs  'as  seen  Bat." 

"  Well,"  said  the  lieutenant,  "  'spose  'e  have  seen 
Bat,  where  do  we  come  in?  Wliat's  in  the  pot?  Ye 
kin  tell  Mr.  Bat  we'll  not  quit  till  we  see  some  dough." 

The  captain  reported  to  Bat,  and  returning  to  the 


154  THE  STORY  OP  THE  RAILROAD. 

lieutenant,  who  stood  surrounded  by  his  faithful  sol- 
diers, said: 

"  Bat  says  the  gentleman  'as  seen  'im,  an'  if  you 
gents  don't  come  off  at  wonct  he'll  have  to  come  over 
personally.  Th'  gen'l'man  'as  seen  'im — see?  "  and 
with  that  the  captain  shot  a  spray  of  tobacco  juice 
into  an  engine  pit  ten  feet  from  where  he  stood,  and 
strode  away. 

The  army  laid  down  their  arms,  for  Mr.  Weitbrec 
had  seen  Bat. 

The  surrounding  of  the  round-house,  however,  did 
not  mean  the  giving  over  of  the  whole  town,  and  the 
Santa  Fe  men  still  held  the  dispatcher's  office. 

In  the  meantime  Colonel  Dodge's  train  was  coming 
down  from  the  north,  and  Governor  Hunt  was  com- 
ing up  from  the  south.  The  excitement  was  hourly 
increasing.  Wherever  the  Santa  Fe  men  refused  to 
open  up,  the  doors  were  smashed  and  the  Eio  Grande 
men,  usually  headed  by  a  sheriff,  took  possession. 

When  the  train  reached  Pueblo  the  express  car  was 
broken  into,  the  Adams  express  matter  dumped  upon 
the  platform,  and  Mr.  Kramer's  messenger,  loaded 
down  like  a  Christmas  tree  in  a  mining  camp,  where 
the  favourite  gift  is  a  six-shooter,  dumped  on  top  of 
his  freight. 

"  The  excitement  throughout  the  State  was  un- 
paralleled. Telegrams  poured  over  the  wire  to  the 
Governor's  office.  One  from  the  sheriff  of  Pueblo 
County  was  to  the  effect  that  an  armed  mob  had 
seized  the  Denver  and  Rio  Grande  property  there  and 
resisted  his  efforts  to  dislodge  them.  He  had  exhausted 
all  peaceable  means  to  that  end,  and  felt  that  he  must 


THE  GRAND  CA!?0N  WAR.  155 

resort  to  force,  but  asked  for  instructions.  The  Gov- 
ernor responded  that  he  must  act  within  the  strict  com- 
mands of  the  court.  It  was  not  for  him  (Pitkin)  to 
construe  the  legal  effect  of  writs  in  the  hands  of 
sheriffs;  they  must  act  upon  their  own  responsibility. 
Thrown  upon  his  own  resources,  later  in  the  day  the 
sheriff,  with  a  large  posse,  forced  the  door  of  the  dis- 
patcher's office.  A  number  of  shots  were  fired,  but  no 
one  was  injured.  About  dark  the  same  evening  ex- 
Governor  Hunt,  that  whirlwind  of  energy  and  indis- 
cretion, arrived  on  the  scene  from  the  south  with  a 
force  of  two  hundred  men.  They  had  captured  all  the 
small  stations  along  the  line,  bringing  the  agents  away 
with  them  on  a  captured  train.  It  was  stated  that  two 
of  the  Santa  Fe  men  had  been  killed  and  a  like  num- 
ber wounded.  At  Pueblo  all  was  excitement  and  con- 
fusion, where  Hunt  swept  everything  before  him."  * 

Having  placed  the  property  at  Pueblo  in  the  hands 
of  Eio  Grande  employees.  Governor  Hunt  cleared  the 
Arkansas  Valley  up  to  the  end  of  the  track  at  Canon 
City,  and  when  he  had  finished  there  the  Denver  and 
Rio  Grande  Eailway  was  in  the  hands  of  its  owners. 

We  often  hear  of  a  railroad  train  being  held  up — 
sometimes  by  a  single  man — but  this  is  probably  the 
only  instance  where  an  entire  railroad  has  been  cap- 
tured at  the  end  of  a  gun,  or  a  few  hundred  guns. 

When  the  sun  rose  on  the  12th  of  June,  it  shone 
on  General  Palmer  in  all  his  glory,  running  every  de- 
partment of  the  road,  but  the  end  was  not  yet.  Judge 
Hallett  promptly  declared  Judge  Bowen's  decision  null 

♦  Hall's  History  of  Colorado. 


156  THE  STORY  OP  THE  RAILROAD. 

and  void.  Judge  Bowen  rallied,  and  two  days  later 
issued  a  decree  placing  the  road  in  the  hands  of  a 
receiver.  Again  the  Santa  Fe  went  to  the  Federal 
Court.  In  the  meantime  rumours  of  riot  and  blood- 
shed came  up  from  all  along  the  line.  At  Pueblo  the 
Eio  Grande  men  had  erected  heavy  fortiiications  all 
about  the  station,  while  up  in  the  canon  Deremer  had 
his  army  entrenched  and  supplied,  and  saw  that  no 
work  was  done  by  the  opposing  company. 

Judge  Hallett,  Judge  IMiller  concurring,  now  or- 
dered all  property  unlawfully  taken  to  be  restored  to  the 
Santa  Fe,  after  which  the  Eio  Grande  might  institute 
proceedings  for  the  cancellation  of  the  lease.  Three 
days  were  given  for  the  complete  restoration  of  the 
property  to  the  lessees. 

The  Santa  Fe  now  asked  that  the  receiver  be  dis- 
charged, which,  after  elaborate  arguments,  was  done. 
The  Eio  Grande  promptly  restored  the  road  to  the 
lessees,  and  asked  for  an  order  restraining  the  Santa 
Fe  from  operating  it.  This  order  was  issued,  a  new 
receiver  appointed,  and  the  road  restored  to  its  owners. 

Jay  Gould,  who  had  vainly  tried  a  number  of  times 
to  settle  the  strife,  now  secured  a  controlling  interest 
in  the  Denver  and  Eio  Grande,  after  which  the  war 
came  to  an  end.* 

Looking  back  over  the  twenty  summers  that  have 

*  President  Strong  relates  that  Jay  Gould  made  a  proposition 
to  him  at  the  Windsor  Hotel  at  Denver  for  the  settlement  of 
tlie  war.  It  was  so  equitable,  so  fair  to  the  Atchison  Company, 
tliiit  lie  could  not  believe  it.  He  asked  Mr.  (Jould  to  write  it  out, 
and  finally  requested  him  to  read  it  aloud,  which  Mr.  Gould  did. 
Mr.  Strong  then  wired  it  to  Boston,  but  got  no  reply. 


THE   GRAND   CANON  WAR.  15  7 

slipped  away  since  the  excitement  in  the  canon,  as  the 
receding  miles  slip  out  from  under  a  sleeper,  one  is 
apt  to  say  that  the  end  of  it  all  was  a  good  ending. 
Many  of  the  men  who  took  part  in  the  war  are  still 
here  to  criticise  this  tame  picture  of  those  stirring 
scenes. 


13 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

INCIDENTS  OF  THE  EARLY  DATS. 

Many  really  laughable  things  happened  in  the 
making  of  the  railroads  of  the  West.  Men  often  took 
advantage  of  the  miles  that  lay  between  civilization 
and  the  last  stake,  and  settled  differences  as  best  they 
could  to  save  the  time  and  expense  of  going  to  court. 
Then,  often,  a  man,  or  the  company  he  represented, 
would  have  a  hard  case  that  would  not  stand  the  air- 
ing that  it  was  sure  to  get  at  the  hands  of  a  cross- 
examiner.  Perhaps  rival  roads  were  reaching  for  a 
certain  pass  the  possession  of  which  was  as  good  as  a 
deed.  In  that  case  the  chief,  or  locating  engineer,  of 
each  set  about  to  beat  the  other.  In  this  way  alone,  in 
more  than  one  instance,  the  history  of  railroads — even 
of  vast  sections  of  the  West — has  been  greatly  affected. 
A  line  projected  and  planned  to  be  built  in  a  certain 
direction  was  often  headed  off  by  a  smart  rival  and 
forced  to  nose  along  the  ribs  of  the  Eockics  for  an- 
other outlet. 

The  president's  private  car,  when  the  road  was 
completed,  often  carried  him  into  a  country  alto- 
gether different  from  the  route  originally  mapped  out. 
There  was  never  any  doubt  as  to  the  loyalty  of  a 
locating  engineer.  So  far  as  the  writer  knows,  no 
158 


INCIDENTS  OF  THE  EARLY  DAYS.  159 

attempt  to  bribe  these  fearless  pathfinders  was  ever 
made.  The  treasurer  of  one  line  could  always  do 
business  with  the  lawless  thugs  armed  and  employed 
by  its  rival  to  hold  a  pass  or  a  canon,  but  never  with 
the  real  men  of  the  West.  In  the  early  days  it  was  a 
common  and  regarded  as  a  perfectly  fair  thing  to 
ditch  a  train  carrying  records,  attorneys,  or  officials 
of  a  rival  road.  To  be  sure,  care  was  always  taken  to 
do  as  little  damage  as  possible,  and  not  to  endanger  the 
lives  of  those  on  board,  the  main  object  being  to  delay 
the  train.  During  the  Grand  Caiion  war,  the  acting 
general  manager  of  the  Santa  Fe  once  had  his  special 
ditched  five  times  on  a  single  run  of  one  hundred  and 
twenty  miles  from  Pueblo  to  Denver.  Finally,  when 
they  could  keep  him  out  of  the  town  in  no  other  way, 
the  dispatcher  put  the  special  on  a  spur  with  orders  to 
"  meet  extra  west  "  at  that  station;  but  the  extra  never 
came,  and  after  hours  of  waiting  the  special  flagged  to 
the  next  telegraph  station  and  asked  for  orders. 

Conductors  have  been  known  to  disable  the  engine 
of  their  own  train,  and  engine  drivers  have  been  taken 
suddenly  and  violently  ill  on  the  road.  Upon  one 
occasion  the  resourceful  engineer  of  a  special  bearing  a 
sherifE  and  his  posse  out  to  suppress  a  lot  of  strikers 
had  a  fit  in  the  cab.  The  attack  was  so  violent  that 
he  did  not  recover  until  he  heard  one  of  the  deputies 
announce  that  he  was  a  locomotive  engineer  from  the 
Reading,  and  could  "  run  the  mill  in."  Then  the 
driver  slowly  recovered. 

At  the  next  stop,  having  filled  the  feed  pipes, 
through  which  the  water  passes  from  the  tank  to  the 
engine,  with  soap,  he  announced  to  his  fireman  that  he 


IGO  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

was  about  to  "throw  another  fit."  This  time  he  did 
not  recover.  The  smart  runner  took  the  throttle,  the 
fireman  having  confessed  his  inability  to  run^,  and  in 
a  little  while  had  the  boiler  as  full  of  lather  as  a 
barber's  mug,  and  about  as  useful  for  steaming 
purposes.  The  train  hung  up  on  the  first  heavy- 
grade,  and  had  to  wait  until  the  engineer  came  round 
again. 

To  get  the  clerk  of  a  county  or  district  court  on 
board  a  train  with  the  court's  seal  was  considered  a 
smart  piece  of  work. 

The  same  official  referred  to  here  as  having  had  his 
car  ditched  five  times  on  a  single  trip,  was  in  Pueblo 
one  day  when  A.  A.  Eobinson,  chief  engineer  of  the 
Santa  Fe,  came  to  ask  a  favour. 

"Mr.  Blank,"  said  Mr.  Robinson,  "I've  got  the 
clerk  of  the  district  court  at  Alamosa  here.  I  want  to 
give  him  to  you.  He  has  the  seal  with  him,  and  I  should 
like  to  have  him  in  Kansas,  or  out  of  Colorado  at  least, 
by  daylight  to-morrow  morning." 

"  But  I'm  not  going  to  Kansas,"  said  the  official. 

"  I  understand,"  said  the  chief  engineer,  "  but  I 
thought  you  might  take  a  run  out  that  way  as  a  per- 
sonal favour,  and  at  the  same  time  to  rid  this  growing 
young  State  of  so  disreputable  an  official  as  the  clerk 
of  til  is  district  court  seems  to  be." 

"  He  has  stolen  the  seal  of  the  court,  eh?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  And  you  want  me  to  stoal  him?  " 

"  Exactly.  You've  got  the  only  engine  the  com- 
pany owns  here  that  is  fit  for  the  road,  so  I've  been 
driven  by  circumstances  to  ask  tliis  favour." 


INCIDENTS  OF  THE  EARLY  DAYS.  161 

"Where  is  this  thief  that  I  am  supposed  to  want 
to  steal?" 

"  In  your  private  car,  sir.  I  heard  him  ask  the 
porter  to  put  him  to  bed  at  once,  so  he's  probably 
asleep  by  this  time." 

"How  am  I  to  handle  him?  Is  he  to  eat  at  the 
first  table  and  smoke  my  cigars?  " 

"  He's  not  to  eat  at  all.  I  shall  tell  the  conductor 
to  put  him  off  at  Coolidge,  and  in  that  way  save  you 
the  embarrassment  of  an  uninteresting  acquaintance." 

"  Thank  you,  Robinson.  You  are  very  thoughtful. 
You  may  order  the  engine,  if  you  will,  while  I  break  the 
news  to  Mrs.  Blank.  She  has  had  her  hair  crimped  for 
Manitou." 

While  Mr.  Blank  explained  the  situation  to  Mrs. 
Blank,  the  engine  backed  up  and  coupled  on.  The 
conductor  came  bounding  from  the  dispatcher's  office 
with  two  copies  of  the  running  orders,  and  they  were 
about  to  pull  out  when  Mr.  Blank  came  from  the  car. 

"You  don't  mind  a  little  shaking  up,  do  you?" 
asked  Robinson. 

"  Not  in  the  least,"  said  Mr.  Blank,  indifferently. 
"  I  can  ride  as  fast  as  he  can  run." 

The  driver  heard  that,  and  he  made  up  his  mind 
to  take  it  out  of  the  man  with  the  special.  They  were 
in  the  act  of  pulling  out  when  a  couple  of  men  came 
walking  rapidly  from  the  telegraph  office. 

"  Where's  this  train  goin'  to  ?  "  demanded  one  of 
the  men. 

When  neither  Robinson  nor  the  conductor  an- 
swered, Mr.  Blank  informed  the  man  that  the  train 
was  going  to  Topeka. 


162  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

"  Good  'nough/'  said  the  stranger;  "  I'll  just  take 
a  run  down  to  Topeka  m'self — will  you  jine  me. 
Bill?" 

"  This  train  doesn't  carry  passengers,"  said  the  con- 
ductor, slipping  between  the  two  men  and  the  steps 
leading  up  to  the  rear  platform  of  the  car.  Mr.  Blank 
had  paused  upon  the  second  step.  "  This  is  a  private 
car,"  he  said,  "  and  we  can't  accommodate  you." 

The  two  men  with  broad  hats  and  heavy  firearms 
drew  near.  Kobinson  and  the  conductor  stepped  be- 
tween them  and  the  car. 

"  You've  got  one  passenger,"  said  the  man  who 
had  spoken  for  the  would-be  voyagers,  "  and  I  guess 
you  can  take  a  couple  more." 

"  Keep  back! "  said  Mr.  Blank,  raising  a  good-sized 
boot  and  swinging  it  threateningly  near  the  face  of 
one  of  the  strangers. 

"  Looka  here,"  said  the  man,  showing  his  temper, 
"  I'm  a  deputy  sheriff.  You've  got  the  clerk  of  the 
district  court  in  that  car,  an'  I  want  him,  see?  " 

"  No,  I  don't  see.  I  have  not  seen  the  clerk  of  any 
court,  and  don't  want  to.  This  car  is  my  home,  and 
you  can't  come  in  here.    Do  you  see?  " 

Now  the  car  began  to  move  off.  The  brakeman 
and  porter  came  out  on  the  platform,  the  conductor 
got  aboard,  and  Robinson  stood  on  the  last  step.  Five 
men  on  the  rear  platform  of  a  special  car,  fenced  about 
with  iron  railing,  make  it  difficult  for  unwelcome 
visitors  to  mount.  The  deputies  saw  that  the  only  way 
to  take  the  car  was  to  begin  shooting.  Suddenly  the 
right  hand  of  each  of  the  offieors  went  round  to  the 
right  hip.    Some  of  the  men  on  the  car  made  a  like 


INCIDENTS  OF  THE  EARLY  DAYS.  1G3 

movement,  but  at  that  moment  the  deputies  thought 
better  of  it  and  allowed  the  special  to  pull  out. 

When  the  train  had  crossed  the  last  switch,  Robin- 
son dropped  off  and  went  to  bed,  and  then  the  fun  be- 
gan in  the  private  car.  The  road  had  just  been  com- 
pleted to  Pueblo,  and  before  they  had  gone  a  mile  the 
car  was  rolling.  As  they  proceeded,  the  track  seemed  to 
grow  worse.  Mr.  Blank  had  unwittingly  "  dared  "  the 
driver,  and  the  driver  was  showing  the  track  off.  He 
knew  nothing  of  the  presence  of  Mrs.  Blank,  and  was 
letting  the  engine  out  regardless  of  consequences. 
Mrs.  Blank  was  a  good  sailor,  however,  and,  not  being 
able  to  appreciate  the  real  danger  as  the  men  did,  went 
to  bed,  but  not  to  sleep.  By  and  by  the  ear  began  to 
pitch  like  a  side-wheeler  crossing  the  English  channel. 
The  negro  forward  was  busy  picking  up  cooking  tools 
and  hammering  his  head  against  the  hard-wood  finish 
in  the  kitchen  car.  The  conductor  and  brakeman  were 
exchanging  glances  and  cold,  mirthless  smiles.  Mr. 
Blank  was  holding  hard  to  both  arms  of  a  seat. 
"  George,"  called  his  wife  from  her  room,  "  we're  going 
—in  the— ditch!" 

George  gasped,  stood  up  and  reached  for  the  bell 
cord.  At  that  moment  they  hit  a  high  centre,  the  car 
listed,  the  window  came  up  and  crashed  against  Mr. 
Blank's  elbow. 

If  he  swore,  nobody  heard  it  above  the  deafening 
roar  of  the  rolling  car.  The  conductor,  looking  around 
when  the  crash  came,  got  a  signal  in  the  direction  of 
the  slack  rope  that  was  threshing  along  the  transoms: 
"Pull  the  bell  on  that  lunatic!"  yelled  Mr.  Blank. 
The  conductor  reached  for  the  rope.     It  eluded  his 


I6i  THE  STORY  OF  THE  HAILROAD. 

grasp  and  his  elbow  went  through  a  window.  Another 
effort  secured  the  coveted  cord,  but  the  rope  crawled 
in  from  the  forward  car  and  fell  in  a  heap  on  the 
floor. 

In  the  excitement  incident  to  the  departure  of  the 
special  from  Pueblo  the  trainmen  had  neglected  to 
connect  the  cord  with  the  bell  in  the  engine  cab,  so  that 
now  they  could  not  communicate  with  the  daring 
driver. 

The  train  hung  to  the  track,  as  trains  will  some- 
times do  when  there  is  every  reason  for  their  going  into 
the  ditch,  and  after  a  wild  run  over  nearly  two  hun- 
dred miles  of  new  rail  it  slowed  down  and  left  the 
clerk  at  Coolidge,  just  over  the  State  line. 

As  he  was  leaving  the  train,  the  seal-thief,  in  the 
vigorous  language  of  the  West,  gave  the  porter  his 
opinion  of  anybody  who  would  make  a  business  of  that 
sort  of  night  sailing  and  think  that  they  were  having 
a  good  time. 

The  conductor  went  forward  at  Coolidge,  at  the  sug- 
gestion of  Mr.  Blank,  and  explained  to  the  engineer 
that  they  were  out  of  the  enemy's  country,  and  that  it 
would  be  perfectly  safe  to  slow  down  to  about  a  mile  a 
minute. 

There  was  an  unwritten  law  among  the  trail  makers 
that  gave  a  man  with  a  gun  in  possession  of  a  pass  a 
title  to  the  same  so  long  as  he  could  hold  it.  To  be 
sure,  it  was  jumpable,  like  a  mining  claim,  as  soon  as 
the  man's  back  was  turned,  but  that  was  the  holder's 
lookout. 

The  boldest  bit  of  work  ever  accomplished  on  the 


INCIDENTS  OF  THE  EARLY  DAYS.  165 

plains  in  the  way  of  holding  property  was  the  "  draw- 
ing in  "  of  the  Kit  Carson  road  just  before  an  officer 
of  the  United  States  court  arrived  to  sell  it.  No  doubt 
it  had  a  good  ejffect  in  the  end,  as  tending  toward  a 
better  understanding  on  the  part  of  foreign  investors 
of  the  nature  and  possibilities  of  enterprises  in  which 
they  were  asked  to  invest. 

This  line,  which  was  built  from  Kit  Carson  to  Las 
Animas,  Col.,  on  the  Arkansas,  was  bonded  for 
several  millions  to  English  capitalists,  with  the  prom- 
ise that  it  would  ultimately  be  developed  into  a  through 
line  to  the  Pacific  coast  over  the  old  Santa  Fe  trail. 

It  was  done  in  the  dawn  of  the  era  of  great  railroad 
construction  in  the  West,  at  a  time  when  capital  was 
comparatively  easy  to  get.  The  material  with  which 
the  fifty-six  miles  of  road  were  constructed  was  all  fur- 
nished by  the  Kansas  Pacific  Eailway  Company,  for 
the  road,  if  ever  completed  to  the  coast,  would  naturally 
become  a  part  of  that  system.  Wlien  the  rails  reached 
Las  Animas,  the  Kansas  Pacific  put  on  a  daily  pas- 
senger-train service  to  old  Fort  Lyon  and  the  end  of 
the  track,  and  took  care  of  what  little  freight  originated 
on  the  branch  as  well  as  of  that  coming  into  the  new 
district  from  the  East. 

About  this  time  the  Atchison,  Topeka  and  Santa 
Fe  began  the  construction  of  a  road  from  Topeka  west, 
in  the  direction  of  Santa  r6,  also  along  the  old  Santa 
Fe  trail.  The  panic  of  1873  pvit  a  temporary  stop  to 
railroad  building  in  the  West,  otherwise  the  Kansas 
Pacific  might  have  been  a  competitor  in  the  great  race 
for  Baton  Pass,  in  which  the  Santa  Fe  and  the  Denver 
and  Eio  Grande  afterward  took  part. 


166  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

American  securities  were  shaky  in  '73.  The  Eng- 
lish bondholders,  having  no  returns  from  the  money 
blindly  invested,  went  into  court  and  had  a  receiver 
appointed.  Meanwhile  the  Kansas  Pacific  kept  dou- 
bling the  road  every  day  to  keep  the  rust  off  the  rail, 
and  awaited  developments.  Times  grew  harder,  and 
the  court  ordered  the  road  to  be  sold.  Of  course,  the 
Kansas  Pacific  Company  had  received  nothing  for  the 
material,  and  said,  with  a  good  deal  of  justice,  "  We 
ought  to  save  our  iron." 

The  date  was  fixed  for  the  sale  of  the  road,  and 
when  it  came  near  enough  the  Kansas  Pacific  people 
went  out  to  Las  Animas  and  began  to  gather  up  the 
things  that  they  had  loaned  to  the  new  road.  First 
of  all  they  pulled  down  the  switch-targets  at  Las  Ani- 
mas. Then  they  gathered  up  everything  that  belonged 
to  them  and  brought  it  out.  They  took  up  the  rails 
and  ties  and  carried  them  back  to  Kit  Carson.  All 
the  improvements,  stations,  tanks,  and  turn-tables  that 
had  been  built  by  them  or  with  Kansas  Pacific  ma- 
terial they  hauled  home  with  them.  Finally,  when 
they  had  finished,  they  had  hauled  the  entire  Kit  Car- 
son Railroad  up  to  Kit  Carson,  sorted  it,  and  piled  it 
up  to  dry. 

And  so  it  fell  out  that  when  the  officer  of  the 
court  came  up  to  sell  the  road,  the  local  officials  and 
the  crew  of  the  special  that  had  brought  the  party  were 
})ubbling  over  with  tlic  joke.  To  be  sure,  some  dozens 
of  widows  and  orphans  may  have  had  their  all  invested 
here,  but  that  is  not  the  popular  belief.  The  builders 
of  railroads,  unfortunately,  arc  usually  reckoned  to  be 
millionaires  who  can  stand  the  loss,  and  so  the  people 


INCIDENTS  OF  THE  EARLY  DAYS.  167 

about  Kit  Carson  laughed  in  their  sleeves  and  followed 
the  authorities  down  to  the  switch  that  used  to  open  to 
let  the  Las  Animas  express  in.  "  Where  is  this  rail- 
road?" asked  the  auctioneer. 

"  Well/'  said  the  chief  engineer,  "  the  fixtures  be- 
longed to  us — there's  the  right  of  way,  though,  as  good 
as  new." 

The  owners  bought  it  in. 

The  close  of  the  war  in  the  canon  left  the  Santa  Fe 
free  to  follow  out  the  original  plans  of  the  projectors 
of  that  line,  while  its  plucky  little  rival  turned  north 
to  help  open  up  and  develop  the  then  unknown  wealth 
of  the  mihes  in  the  mountains,  and  the  farms  and 
orchards  in  the  valleys  of  Colorado  and  Utah. 

In  twenty  years  from  the  day  Colonel  Holiday 
showed  the  "  drawing  of  his  dream  "  at  the  end  of  the 
first  thirteen  miles  of  road,  the  total  mileage  of  the  sys- 
tem had  grown  to  nearly  ten  thousand  miles,  equal  to 
half  that  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  half  that  of 
France  or  Eussia,  and  two  thirds  that  of  Germany. 
Its  rails  would  reach  more  than  one  third  the  distance 
around  the  earth,  and  upon  its  pay  rolls  were  ten  thou- 
sand more  men  than  were  in  the  United  States  Army 
at  the  beginning  of  the  war  with  Spain.  Upon  its 
rails  a  thousand  locomotives  were  employed  constantly 
with  forty  thousand  cars.  The  traffic  of  the  road  had 
been  created,  in  most  instances,  by  the  road  itself — by 
the  opening  and  developing  of  the  country. 

The  venerable  projector  of  the  road,  and  its  first 
president,  has  been  a  member  of  the  board  of  directors 
ever  since  the  organization  of  the  company.    He  has 


168  THE  STORY  OP  THE  RAILROAD. 

lived  to  see  the  fulfilment  of  his  prophecy — the  realiza- 
tion of  his  dream — as  few  men  have,  and  the  man  who 
rolled  upon  the  ground,  roared,  laughed,  and  called 
the  prophet  a  "  damned  old  fool,"  lived  to  see  all  this, 
and  to  be  a  passenger  agent  of  the  line,  upon  which 
there  are  five  bridges  that  cost  as  many  millions.  The 
legal  history  of  the  road,  of  the  making  and  moulding 
of  the  vast  system,  would  make  an  interesting  story. 

Ninety-five  corporations,  which  have  at  one  time  or 
another  played  an  important  part  in  the  history  of  the 
company,  are  dead  and  inactive  by  abandonment  or 
absorption.  There  are  now  seventy-nine  active  com- 
panies. The  manipulation  and  amalgamation  of  the 
vast  number  of  properties  has  been  done  chiefly  in  a 
legal  way  by  Mr.  George  E.  Peck,  of  Kansas,  who  en- 
tered the  service  of  the  system  in  1878.  To  him, 
chiefly,  has  fallen  the  task  of  welding  together  this  vast 
number  of  corporations,  which  were  from  time  to  time 
merged  into  the  present  system,  or  set  to  revolving  in 
close  connection  with  it. 

Many  beardless  boys  who  entered  the  service  of  the 
Kansas  road  before  it  had  crossed  the  State  line  are 
to-day  the  gray  heads  of  departments  on  what  has 
grown  to  be  one  of  the  "  longest  roads  on  earth." 

It  is  a  singular  fact  that  the  tourist,  watching  from 
a  window  of  the  California  Limited,  sees  neither  of  the 
three  cities  whose  names  combine  to  make  the  name  of 
this  great  railroad.  The  Limited  leaves  Atchison  a 
half  hundred  miles  to  the  north,  Topeka  a  half  dozen 
miles  in  the  same  direction,  and  Santa  F6  can  be 
reached  only  over  a  branch  line. 

Mr.    Strong,   who    as   vice-president   and   general 


INCIDENTS  OF  THE  EARLY  DAYS.  169 

manager  helped  to  make  some  of  the  company's  hottest 
history,  became  its  president  in  1881,  and  held  the 
position  for  seven  years,  leaving  the  service  and  retir- 
ing to  his  quiet  farm  at  Beloit,  Wis.,  in  1889.  For 
half  a  dozen  years  he  dazzled  the  railroad  world  of 
the  quiet  East,  and  awed  the  natives  of  the  untamed 
West. 

Mr.  Charles  S.  Gleed,  an  influential  director  of  the 
Atchison  Company,  who  is  ever  ready  to  give  credit 
where  it  is  due,  declares  that  Mr.  Strong  was  a  "  mag- 
nate "  when  to  be  a  magnate  in  that  territory  meant  to 
be  "  half  the  time  a  rioter  and  the  other  half  a  fugi- 
tive; *  that  strictly  within  the  bounds  of  civil  life,  he 
was  yet  as  free  as  Columbus  to  discover  new  commer- 
cial worlds,  declare  war  and  wage  it,  organize  and  build 
communities,  overturn  political  powers  of  long  stand- 
ing, replace  old  civilizations  with  new,  and  do  all  this 
asking  no  man's  leave  save  those  whose  money  was  to 
be  risked,  or  those,  few  in  number,  whose  tasks  were 
somewhat  like  his  and  in  the  same  field." 

Under  Mr.  Strong's  administration  of  the  affairs 
of  the  Santa  Fe,  Kansas  was  mostly  settled,  Colorado 
developed.  New  Mexico  transformed,  and  Arizona 
awakened;  while  Texas,  California,  and  Mexico  were 
bound  together  by  way  of  Kansas;  and  all  were  guyed 
to  the  great  Western  Metropolis,  Chicago.  Towns  were 
located  and  built,  cities  were  brought  into  being,  mines 
were  opened,  millions  of  people  were  moved,  wars  were 
waged  and  customs  and  precedents  established  in  com- 
merce and  law.  All  this  was  done  with  one  man  as  the 
chief  arbiter  of  many  destinies.     Law  has  succeeded 

*  The  Cosmopolitan,  February,  1893. 


170  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

much  of  this  individual  power.  Legislative  hodies, 
courts,  government  commissions,  commercial  organiza- 
tions, labour  organizations — all  these  have  come  on  the 
scene,  writes  Mr.  Gleed.    He  adds: 

"  Thus  the  romance  in  the  business  has  largely 
gone.  It  went  with  the  Indian,  who  once  burned 
station-houses  and  murdered  settlers  along  the  line; 
with  the  Colorado  and  Kansas  grasshoppers,  that 
stopped  the  very  trains  on  the  track;  with  the  drought 
that  drove  the  settlers  back  and  threatened  ruin  to  the 
whole  new  field  of  commerce.  It  went  with  the  strug- 
gle for  the  valuable  mountain  passes  and  the  rich- 
est valleys;  with  the  riot  of  new  discoveries  in  the 
mineral  world — the  sudden  upturning  of  precious 
metals  and  the  incredible  incoming  of  eager  fortune- 
hunters  from  every  quarter  of  the  globe.  It  went  with 
the  terrors  of  the  border,  the  great  wave  of  hardened 
and  reckless  humanity  which  precedes  rigid  civilization; 
with  the  countless  herds  of  buffalo  and  the  prairie  dog 
and  the  coyote.  It  went  with  the  unorganized  political 
activity  which  naturally  gathered  about  so  great  a 
nucleus  of  power  as  the  railroad.  It  went  with  the  ad- 
vent of  the  now  omnipresent  hand  of  law  and  legal  re- 
sistance; with  the  revelations  of  the  printed  sheet,  the 
decorated  car,  and  the  great  centennial  exhibit.  It 
went  with  the  passing  of  many  of  the  rare,  famous,  or 
notorious  men  of  the  day,  the  men  who  made  the  his- 
tory of  their  times;  with  the  end  of  the  great  gulf 
stream  of  humanity  that  poured  out  of  the  Old  World 
into  the  New,  and  with  the  flinging  open  of  Oklahoma. 
It  went  in  all  these  ways,  and  others,  and  it  went  to 
stay." 


CHAPTER   XV. 

THE   DENVER  AND  EIO  GEANDE. 

After  the  war  with  the  Santa  Fe,  which  left  the 
Rio  Grande  in  possession  of  the  Grand  Canon  of  the 
Arkansas,  the  latter  company  rushed  its  rails  into 
Leadville.  The  twelve  miles  of  track  that  the  Santa  Fe 
had  chiseled  from  the  granite  walls  of  the  wild  gorge 
gave  the  narrow  gauge  possession  of  the  only  possible 
pass  to  the  Carbonate  Camp  in  Lake  County,  to  Aspen 
beyond  Tennessee  Pass,  and  ultimately  on  down  the 
Grand  River  to  Salt  Lake  and  the  Pacific. 

The  great  controversy  between  the  rival  roads  was 
ended  in  the  complete  "  lay  down  "  of  the  big  line  in 
1879. 

In  the  following  year  the  Denver  and  Rio  Grande 
reached  the  booming  silver  camp,  where  what  is  now 
the  main  line  ended  for  about  ten  years.  In  the  dawn 
of  the  '80s  all  Colorado  was  smelting  silver,  and  at  that 
time  silver  was  worth  smelting. 

Just  where  the  road  entered  the  Grand  Canon  of 
the  Arkansas  a  little  mountain  stream  poured  its 
limpid  waters  into  the  river  from  the  opposite  shore. 
Up  this  narrow,  crooked  gorge,  called  Grape  Creek 
Cafion,  probably  because  there  were  no  grapes  in  it, 
the  pathfinders   of  the  narrow   gauge   chopped   and 

171 


172  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

picked  their  way  until  they  reached  the  high  open 
plain  of  Wet  Mountain  Valley.  Thirty  miles  from  the 
main  line,  in  Custer  County,  lay  Silver  Cliff,  where 
thirty  thousand  men,  women,  and  outlaws  had  assem- 
bled to  carve  out  a  fortune.  It  was  to  reach  this 
booming  camp  that  the  company  now  began  the  con- 
struction of  a  branch  line  through  Grape  Creek  Canon. 
It  finished  it  in  a  little  over  a  year,  in  time  to  carry 
away  the  corpse  of  the  dead  camp.* 

Beyond  the  Sangre  de  Christo,  on  the  Pacific  side 
of  the  range,  Gunnison  was  thriving  like  a  bit  of  scan- 
dal, building  smelters,  shipping  silver,  and  developing 
a  burying  ground  on  the  banks  of  the  Gunnison  River. 

Passenger  rates  on  the  Eio  Grande  were  six  cents  a 
mile  in  the  valleys  and  ten  in  the  mountains,  with 
freight  rates  in  proportion. 

These  conditions  made  great  the  temptation  to  the 
management  to  try  to  reach  every  booming  camp  in 
Colorado  at  the  earliest  possible  moment,  and  the  re- 
sult was  that  the  millions  of  money  used  in  construct- 
ing new  mileage,  together  with  the  millions  poured  in 
from  Europe  and  the  Eastern  States  of  America  for  the 
development  of  mines,  and  still  other  millions  taken 
from  the  hills,  gave  Colorado  an  exciting  boom,  and 
made  it  easy  to  secure  money  to  build  roads,  the  cost 
of  which  would  tie  them  with  silver  and  rail  them  with 
gold. 

While  the  branch  was  being  built  to  Silver  Cliff, 
other  engineers,  leaving  the  Leadville  line  at  Salida, 

*  For  the  story  of  the  undoing  of  this  camp  and  railroad,  see 
my  story,  The  Express  Messenger. — C.  W. 


THE  DENVER  AND  RIO  GRANDE.  173 

fifty  miles  above  the  mouth  of  the  canon,  toiled  up 
to  the  summit  of  the  Eockies,  reaching  the  crest  of  the 
continent  at  Marshall  Pass — ten  thousand  feet  above 
the  sea — and  dropped  a  line  to  Gunnison.  Besides  the 
silver  mines  of  the  Gunnison  country  they  found  here 
the  only  anthracite  coal  in  Colorado,  and  immense 
beds  of  coking  coal.  In  a  little  while  the  boom  fretted 
itself  out,  the  new  hotel  was  closed,  the  fires  died  in 
the  big  smelter,  and  finally  the  public  educator,  hiding 
the  elusive  pea  between  the  two  half  shells  of  a  walnut, 
folded  his  blankets  and  went  away. 

Meanwhile  the  restless  pathfinders,  from  the  tops  of 
the  wild  walls,  were  sounding  the  depths  of  the  Black 
Canon  of  the  Gunnison  for  a  path  to  the  Pacific. 

Below  Sapinero  the  walls  of  the  canon  came  so 
close  together  that  the  trail  makers  were  obliged  to 
turn  back  and  find  a  way  to  the  bottom  of  the  gorge 
beyond  the  narrows.  A  long  rope  was  fixed  to  a  cedar, 
and  a  man  started  down.  The  rope  parted  ten  feet 
from  the  top  of  the  wall,  and  the  daring  engineer  was 
dashed  to  death  at  the  bottom  of  the  canon.  Another 
rope  was  brought,  another  man  went  over,  another, 
and  another,  and  after  burying  their  comrade  in  a 
quiet  place  they  pushed  on  and  planted  a  flag  on  the 
point  of  Currecanti  Needle.  They  then  turned  into  a 
side  caiion,  where  the  Cimarron  empties  into  the  Gun- 
nison, up  the  Cimarron,  over  Cerro  Summit  and  down 
into  the  adobe,  sage-covered  desert  lands  in  the  valley 
of  the  Uncompahgre,  the  Gunnison,  and  the  Grand. 
These  same  adobe  deserts  are  dotted  to-day  with  bits 
of  green  meadowland,  wide  fields  of  waving  grain,  and 

orchards  drooping  with  the  finest  fruit  that  can  be 
13 


174  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

found  anywhere  on  the  continent.  The  rails  that  ran 
through  the  narrow,  wild  canons  were  placed  but  three 
feet  apart,  and  all  that  portion  of  track  shown  on  the 
company's  maps  west  of  Salida  is  still  known  as  the 
narrow-gauge  system  of  the  Denver  and  Eio  Grande. 

Across  the  blazing  Utah  desert  the  locating  en- 
gineers planted  a  row  of  stakes,  and  in  time  the  loco- 
motive, begrimed  with  dust  and  alkali,  dragging  a 
huge  water  car  behind  it,  crossed  over  to  the  shores 
of  the  Great  Salt  Lake. 

The  intention  of  the  projectors  of  the  narrow-gauge 
system,  as  the  name  indicates,  was  to  build  a  road  from 
Denver  to  the  Eio  Grande  Eiver,  and  possibly  down  to 
southern  California  by  way  of  Santa  Fe;  but  when 
Leadville  and  Aspen,  and  other  silver  camps,  began  to 
attract  people  by  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands, 
the  company  did  what  was  best  for  the  road  and  for 
the  State.  Being  a  three-feet  gauge,  the  road  could  go 
where  a  goat  could  find  a  footing.  The  locomotives 
were  heavy  for  the  gauge,  but  with  very  low  wheels. 
The  boilers  lay  so  low  that  the  links,  when  the  lever 
M-as  well  down,  would  almost  touch  the  ties.  The  grade 
on  the  original  main  line  was  two  hundred  and  seven- 
teen feet  to  the  mile.  A  branch  line  to  the  Calumet 
mines  has  a  grade  of  four  hundred  and  eight.  A  heavy 
locomotive  can  haul  three  empty  cars — a  load  and  a 
half — up  the  hill,  and  hold  seven  loads  down,  some- 
times. 

The  Denver  and  Eio  Grande,  before  the  main  line 
was  widened  out,  was  the  most  pretentious,  most  im- 
portant, best  equipped,  and,  so  far  as  we  know,  the 
most  extensive  and  successful  narrow-gauge  system  of 


THE  DENVER  AND  RIO  GRANDE.  175 

railroad  in  the  world.  Nowhere  have  we  ever  seen  such 
perfect  little  palaces  as  were  to  be  found  on  this  three- 
foot  road.  The  only  thing  that  approaches  it  in  neat- 
ness and  completeness  is  a  little  thirty-inch  road  that 
runs  along  the  Suez  Canal,  from  Port  Said  to  Ismailia. 

The  evolution  of  the  motive  power  of  the  Eio 
Grande  is  an  interesting  study.  The  first  locomotives 
weighed  twelve  tons — less  than  weighs  the  empty  tank 
of  one  of  the  mountain  moguls  that  scream  along  that 
line  to-day.  The  mail  cars  had  four  wheels,  and  when 
one  of  them  got  off  the  rail  the  mail  agent  got  out,  and 
then  the  trainmen  put  their  backs  to  the  car  and 
"  jacked  it  up  "  on  the  rail  again.  The  first  coal  ears 
had  four  wheels,  a  dump  in  the  bottom,  and  held  about 
as  much  as  an  ordinary  farm  wagon. 

A  young  man  named  Sample  came  out  from  Bald- 
win's to  set  up  the  first  engine.  When  the  work  had 
been  finished  he  remained  at  Denver,  repairing  air 
pumps  and  "  tinkering  about."  By-and-bye  he  became 
foreman  of  the  round-house,  and  finally  master  me- 
chanic. He  had  begun  in  the  big  shops  at  Philadel- 
phia at  a  dollar  and  a  half  a  week;  now  he  gave  the 
firm  orders  for  five,  ten,  or  twenty  locomotives  at  a 
time.  For  a  quarter  of  a  century  he  remained  at  the 
head  of  the  motive  power  department,  and  then  they 
promoted  him. 

When  Mr.  Jeffrey  became  president  he  took  the 
old  master  mechanic  uptown,  put  him  in  a  fine  office 
in  a  big  building,  and  gave  him  the  salary,  title,  and 
responsibility  of  general  superintendent  of  the  system; 
but  it  did  not  make  the  old  worker  happier  than  he 
had  been  there  at  the  shops,  with  the  sound  of  the 


176  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD, 

morning,  noon,  and  evening  whistle  calling  him  to  and 
from  his  work,  just  as  it  had  called  him  at  Philadel- 
phia in  the  days  when  his  monthly  stipend  reached  the 
sum  of  six  dollars. 

At  first  the  ties  used  on  the  Rio  Grande  were  all 
pine,  but  the  very  hard  mountain  pine.  These  little 
locomotives — four  wheels  connected — could  curve  on 
the  brim  of  a  broad  sombrero,  and  it  was  not  an  un- 
common thing  for  the  locating  engineers  to  run  round 
a  big  bowlder  rather  than  blast  it  away.  They  would 
not  shy  off  for  a  tree  unless  it  happened  to  be  a  very 
large  one. 

In  the  mad  rush  to  reach  a  booming  camp,  no 
attention  was  paid  to  banks.  Often  in  the  early  spring 
the  two  sides  of  a  through  cut  would  ooze  down  over 
the  track  and  cover  it  with  mud.  It  was  two  or  three 
years  before  the  sides  of  the  cuts  got  the  proper  pitch 
and  became  safe. 

General  W.  J.  Palmer  was  the  ruling  genius  in  the 
building  of  the  Denver  and  Rio  Grande,  and  was  its 
president  when  the  narrow  gauge  crossed  the  Utah 
desert.  The  money  that  made  the  Utah  line  seems  to 
have  been  Palmer  money.  Shortly  after  the  comple- 
tion of  the  road  to  Salt  Lake,  the  Rio  Grande  Company 
began  to  feel  that  it  would  like  to  lose  the  general,  and 
his  general  manager.  Colonel  D.  C.  Dodge. 

Messrs.  Palmer  and  Dodge  were  not  in  a  hurry  to 
get  out.  They  had  won  the  big  battle  that  gave  to 
the  company  the  right  of  way  through  the  Royal  Gorge, 
and  felt  that  they  were  at  home.  The  climax  came 
ono  nitflii,  a\1u'ti  a  new  manager  was  temporarily  in- 
Btallcd  at  Denver  during  the  absence  of  General-Man- 


The  Royal  Gorge,  Colorado. 
(Denver  aud  Rio  Grande  Railroad.) 


THE  DENVER  AND  RIO  GRANDE.  177 

ager  Dodge.  The  coloners  car  was  at  the  rear  end  of 
a  regular  train,  and  when  it  came  to  the  foot  of  the 
mountain  the  pin  was  pulled,  and  his  car  allowed  to 
drop  in  on  a  shur.  Very  naturally  the  general  man- 
ager was  indignant.  He  raved  at  the  dispatcher,  and 
was  about  to  wire  an  order  dismissing  that  blameless 
official,  when  he  was  reminded  of  the  fact  that  he 
also  was  at  that  moment  out  of  a  job. 

After  much  delay  and  a  lot  of  wiring,  the  car  was 
coupled  on  again  and  allowed  to  proceed  to  Denver, 
but  that  was  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Messrs.  Palmer 
and  Dodge  on  the  Eio  Grande. 

But  these  indefeasible  fighters  did  not  go  out  of 
business.  They  pulled  the  pin  on  the  Western  section 
at  the  State  line,  called  it  the  "  Eio  Grande  Western," 
and  took  possession.  It  looked  at  the  moment  like  a 
poor  piece  of  property,  stretching  for  the  most  part 
away  across  a  desert  with  a  range  of  mountains  and 
the  Utah  Valley  at  the  other  end,  but  these  far-seeing 
road  makers  saw  the  value  of  the  franchise. 

Whatever  of  rolling  stock  happened  to  be  at  the 
west  end  was  seized  and  held  by  the  Rio  Grande  West- 
ern, and  the  same  was  done  by  the  parent  road.  The 
new  manager  for  the  old  company  now  began  to  get 
men  loyal  to  his  line  to  go  over  to  the  west  end  and 
purloin  locomotives.  When  an  engineer  got  near  the 
State  line,  he  would  have  his  fireman  pull  the  pin 
between  him  and  his  train  and  run  over  into  Colorado. 
This  business  went  on  until  both  companies  grew 
weary,  for  it  was  demoralizing  to  the  service  and  in- 
terfered with  the  exchange  of  traffic  which  was  neces- 
sary to  both  roads. 


178  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

In  time  matters  were  adjusted,  the  superintendent 
of  motive  power  for  the  Eio  Grande  was  made  consult- 
ing superintendent  on  the  western,  and  in  a  few  years 
nearly  all  the  operating  department,  from  the  general 
superintendent  down,  as  well  as  the  general  passenger 
agent,  were  men  who  had  been  with  the  old  company. 

When  the  Colorado  Midland  built  across  the  moun- 
tains the  already  prosperous  Rio  Grande  Western 
widened  its  gauge,  bought  new,  heavy  locomotives,  and 
began  to  boom  with  the  business  that  came  to  it  from 
the  rival  roads  in  the  Eockies  and  from  the  Central 
Pacific  at  Ogden,  with  an  ever-increasing  local  freight 
business  originating  in  the  mines,  fields,  and  orchards 
of  Utah,  while  the  passenger  department  could  live 
on  half-rate  tickets  alone,  so  prolific  were  the  families 
that  flourished  at  the  hearths  of  the  faithful. 

Messrs.  Dodge  and  Palmer  are  still  at  the  head  of 
the  road,  which,  like  the  0.  E.  &  N.,  has  always  been 
a  good  road  for  its  owners,  its  employees,  and  the  sec- 
tion of  the  country  through  which  it  runs. 

If  we  except  the  New  York  Central  and  the  Penn- 
sylvania, the  Denver  and  Eio  Grande  is  probably  the 
best  advertised  road  in  the  world.  One  reason  for  this 
is  because  it  has  always  had  a  versatile  and  enthusiastic 
passenger  agent,  but  mainly  because  God  has  scattered 
along  its  line  miles  and  miles  of  almost  matchless  scen- 
ery, so  that  every  lover  of  Nature  who  crosses  the  con- 
tinent by  this  route  becomes  at  once  a  travelling  agent 
for  the  Colorado  road. 


CHAPTER  XYI. 

THE    NOETHERN    PACIFIC. 

Because  it  traversed  a  country  that  promised  some- 
thing for  man  to  feed  on,  the  northern  route  was  the 
one  most  widely  discussed  at  the  beginning  of  the  talk 
of  a  transcontinental  railroad.  It  missed  the  high 
mountains  of  the  middle  West  and  the  deserts  farther 
south.  Then,  too,  in  the  very  early  days,  before  we 
found  out  that  we  were  in  a  great  hurry,  it  was  the 
cheapest  route,  for  by  it  we  were  to  sail  round  to  the 
lakes  of  the  Northwest,  or  paddle  up  the  Missouri,  take 
a  train,  or  some  sort  of  "  steam  carriage,"  to  the  head 
waters  of  the  Columbia,  and  fall  with  the  current  into 
the  Pacific — trolling  for  salmon  on  the  way  down. 

Had  it  not  been  for  the  war  with  Mexico  in  1846, 
which  drew  attention  to  the  Southwest,  the  gold  dis- 
coveries in  California  in  1849,  which  drew  attention 
to  the  Golden  Gate  route,  the  efforts  of  Jefferson  Davis 
and  other  influential  men  of  the  South  in  the  interest 
of  a  southern  route — in  short,  if  there  had  been  no 
other  way,  the  Northern  Pacific  might  have  been  the 
first,  instead  of  the  third,  transcontinental  railroad  in 
America. 

The  Pike's  Peak  excitement  in  1859  was  another 

179 


180  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

star  by  which  the  pioneer  piloted  his  bull  team  across 
the  plains,  opening  a  new  trail  from  Omaha  to  the 
Pacific,  midway  between  the  famed  old  Santa  Fe  trail 
and  the  proposed  path  of  the  Northern  Pacific  Eail- 
road.  In  spite  of  the  prophecies  of  the  seers  of  the 
Senate,  House  of  Representatives,  and  the  financial 
world,  the  middle  and  far  West  continued  to  grow  in 
importance  and  to  give,  from  year  to  year,  promise 
of  a  great  future.  The  Mormons  had  watered  the  adobe 
deserts  of  Utah,  and  they  had  blossomed  into  broad 
vales  of  fruit  and  flowers.  This  desert  land,  so  dreaded 
by  early  voyagers,  that  lay  glistening  in  the  sun  three 
hundred  days  in  each  year,  arched  over  by  a  sky  as 
fine  and  fair,  as  clear  and  blue  as  burnished  steel, 
wanted  only  to  be  watered  to  become  the  garden  spot  of 
the  world. 

But  nobody  knew  this  in  the  early  days.  The  un- 
inhabitable West  was  looked  upon  as  a  thing  to  be 
crossed,  conquered,  and  overcome.  The  plains  and  des- 
erts were  useless,  the  great  Eockies  important  only  as 
ballast  to  keep  the  world  right  side  up.  The  chief  aim 
of  the  transcontinental  railroad,  as  already  stated,  was 
to  reach  the  Pacific  Ocean  and  the  Orient.  The  pos- 
sibility of  the  vast  and  growing  empire  that  lies  between 
the  Missouri  River  and  the  Pacific  coast  to-day  was  put 
aside,  as  the  ignorant  miners  of  Nevada  put  aside  the 
"  blue  stuff  "  that  polluted  their  pans  and  clogged  their 
sluices  on  the  Comstock,  thereby  daily  throwing  for- 
tunes in  the  dump.  Nature  guards  her  secrets  well, 
but  Time  will  tell.  After  all  these  centuries  Africa  and 
Alaska  are  giving  up  their  gold. 

It  might  have  taken  even  a  longer  time  to  have 


THE  NORTHERN  PACIFIC.  181 

demonstrated  the  riches  and  resources  of  the  West  if 
the  civil  war  had  not  made  the  completion  of  a  railroad 
to  the  Pacific  a  political  and  military  necessity. 

When,  in  1853,  Congress  authorized  the  War  De- 
partment to  make  explorations  to  ascertain  the  most 
practicable  route  for  a  railroad  from  the  Mississippi 
Eiver  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  the  details,  including  the 
route  or  routes  to  be  surveyed,  were  all  left  to  Jeffer- 
son Davis,  Secretary  of  War.  Very  naturally  Mr.  Davis 
favoured  a  southern  route,  but  it  is  to  his  credit  that 
he  did  not  allow  his  prejudice  to  interfere  "u^th  his  duty 
to  the  whole  country  in  the  matter.  He  set  five  sepa- 
rate expeditions  to  work  at  once  on  each  of  the  five 
routes  that  had  been  advocated. 

These  were  then  known  as  the  32d,  35th,  38th,  42d, 
and  48th  parallel  routes,  along  which  were  subse- 
quently built  respectively  the  Texas  Southern  Pacific, 
the  Santa  Fe,  the  Kansas  Pacific,  the  Union  Central 
Pacific,  and  the  Northern  Pacific  railroads. 

Isaac  I.  Stevens,  who  had  seen  service  in  Mexico, 
and  was  then  Governor  of  Washington  Territory,  and 
Captain  George  B.  McClellan,  of  the  United  States 
Army,  were  placed  in  charge  of  the  survey  along  the 
extreme  northern  route.  Associated  with  these  leaders 
were  a  number  of  young  men  who  won  fame  in  after 
years.  Captain  McClellan  was  afterward  commander 
in  chief  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  and  was  once  the 
Democratic  candidate  for  the  presidency  of  the  United 
States.  Captain  Stevens  perished  on  a  Virginia  battle- 
field. 

Stevens  worked  west  from  St.  Paul,  McClellan  east- 
ward from  the  Sound. 


182  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

These  things  were  done  in  the  days  when  the  "West 
was  a  howling  wilderness  from  the  river  to  the  coast. 
Each  of  the  outfits  was  armed,  clothed,  and  equipped 
in  true  military  fashion,  and  fixed  for  a  long  and  dan- 
gerous voyage.  Every  mile  of  territory  between  St. 
Paul  and  the  Pacific  was  held  by  the  Indians,  who, 
painted,  feathered,  and  full  of  fight,  crossed  the  path 
of  the  trail  makers  daily,  threatening  the  engineers 
and  often  engaging  them  in  bloody  battle. 

Governor  Stevens,  from  the  Mississippi,  and  Cap- 
tain McClellan,  from  the  Columbia,  fought  their  way 
up  to  the  low  crest  of  the  continent  where  a  base  of 
supplies  had  been  established. 

Governor  Stevens  came  out  of  the  work  an  enthu- 
siastic advocate  of  the  northern  route.  In  fact,  nearly 
every  one  of  the  five  men  sent  out  as  chief  of  the  several 
surveys  seems  to  have  found  a  way  to  the  Pacific,  but 
the  time  had  not  yet  arrived  for  the  great  work  of 
building  the  roads,  or  any  one  of  them.  The  reports 
of  these  expeditions,  which  were  submitted  to  Con- 
gress by  the  Secretary  of  War  in  1855,  filled,  with 
maps  and  illustrations,  thirteen  huge  volumes.  Secre- 
tary Davis,  as  had  been  predicted,  and  as  was  perfectly 
natural  under  the  circumstances,  favoured  the  32d 
parallel  route,  and  argued,  when  submitting  his  report, 
that  the  road  should  not  leave  the  Mississippi  farther 
north  than  Vicksburg. 

But  finally,  when  the  time  came  for  fixing  the 
starting  point  for  the  Pacific  railroad,  it  was  fixed  by 
a  man  politically  as  far  from  Mr.  Davis  as  the  north 
pole  is  from  the  south  pole.  When  President  Lincoln, 
fit  the  conclusion  of  his  first  interview  in  Washington 


THE  NORTHERN  PACIFIC.  183 

with  General  Dodge,  put  his  long  forefinger  on  Oma- 
ha, that  settled  the  question,  so  far  as  the  first  Pacific 
road  was  concerned. 

In  this  way  the  northern  scheme  was  put  aside  for 
the  time,  though  never  abandoned  by  the  men  who  had 
been  pushing  the  enterprise.  After  the  completion  of 
the  first  transcontinental  road  the  California  capital- 
ists, who  had  made  money  out  of  the  building  of  the 
Central  Pacific,  built  the  Southern  Pacific,  which  gave 
the  northern  route  still  another  setback. 

Asa  Whitney,  who  had  been  its  early  and  strongest 
advocate,  who  was  at  one  time  within  a  few  votes  of 
winning  from  Congress  a  strip  of  land  sixty  miles  wide, 
running  from  the  Mississippi  to  the  ocean,  including  a 
title  to  the  Columbia  River  and  sixty  miles  of  sea- 
coast,  went  out  peddling  milk.  Three  or  four  Senators 
of  the  United  States  had  it  in  their  power  to  say 
whether  this  apparently  unselfish  man  should  be  the 
emperor  of  seventy-seven  million  acres  of  land  or  of  a 
milk  wagon,  and  they  gave  him  the  wagon.  We  say 
that  he  was  unselfish  because  he  agreed  to  build  a  rail- 
road through  the  middle  of  his  farm,  all  the  way  from 
St.  Paul  to  Puget  Sound,  without  any  financial  aid 
from  the  Government.  If  he  had  lived  a  quarter  of  a 
century  later  he  might  have  been  a  Gould  or  a  Hunt- 
ington. 

When  the  control  of  the  Government  passed  from 
the  South  to  the  North,  the  friends  of  the  northern 
route  took  courage,  but  the  Government  was  not  going 
to  extremes.  The  friends  of  what  is  now  the  Union 
Pacific  were  close  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  seems  to  have 
favoured  that  survey,  just  as  Thomas  Jefferson  had 


184  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

favoured  the  northern  scheme,  and  as  Jefferson  Davis 
favoured  a  southern  route,  and  the  result  was  that  the 
Government  gave  its  aid  to  the  42d  parallel  line,  over 
which  the  Union  and  Central  Pacific  roads  were  after- 
ward built. 

On  July  2,  1864,  after  the  Union  Pacific  had  se- 
cured the  necessary  legislation  to  insure  the  construc- 
tion of  a  line  from  Omaha,  President  Lincoln  signed 
the  bill  creating  the  Northern  Pacific  Railroad  Com- 
pany. At  the  head  of  this  enterprise  was  a  man  named 
Perham,  who  had  been  before  Congress  for  some  time 
with  what  he  called  "  The  People's  Pacific  Eailroad 
Company."  This  was  a  New  England  organization, 
which  had  been  squeezed  out  of  the  42d  parallel 
scheme,  and  had  transferred  its  faith,  effects,  and 
affections  suddenly  to  the  northern  route.  This  com- 
pany was  to  receive  no  subsidy  in  Government  bonds. 
The  land  grant  was  to  be  twenty  sections  to  the  mile  of 
track  in  Minnesota,  and  forty  sections  in  the  territories. 

Perham  had  persuaded  himself  that  a  million  peo- 
ple stood  ready  to  buy  each  one  share  of  stock  at  one 
hundred  dollars  a  share.  Out  of  this  insane  notion 
grew  an  embarrassing  provision  in  the  charter,  which 
prevented  the  company  from  issuing  mortgage  bonds 
except  by  the  consent  of  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States. 

The  act  of  incorporation  named  one  hundred  and 
thirty-five  persons  as  commissioners  to  organize  the 
Northern  Pacific  Railroad  Company.  In  September, 
1864,  thirty-three  of  these  commissioners,  nearly  all 
New  Englanders,  met  at  Boston  and  elected  Josiah 
Perham  as  president.     The  officers  of  the  board  of 


THE  NORTHERN   PACIFIC.  185 

commissioners  were  directed  to  open  books  for  sub- 
scription to  the  capital  stock.  It  was  necessary  that 
twenty  thousand  shares  of  stock  should  be  subscribed 
for  before  a  board  of  directors  could  be  chosen  to  elect 
permanent  officers  to  take  the  active  management  of 
the  business  from  the  commissioners  appointed  by 
Congress.  Now  came  John  Hancock,  who  purchased 
one  share,  for  which  he  is  supposed  to  have  deposited 
ten  dollars  with  Mr.  Increase  S.  Whittington,  treasurer 
of  the  board.  Two  Perhams  subscribed  for  one  share 
each,  while  Josiah,  the  president,  took  ten.  John  A. 
Bass  bought  one  share,  and  S.  C.  Fessenden  four  thou- 
sand. 

In  all,  twenty  thousand  and  seventy-five  shares  were 
subscribed  for,  and  in  December,  1864,  a  board  of 
directors  was  elected.  Josiah  Perham  now  became  the 
first  president  of  the  Northern  Pacific  Railroad  Com- 
pany, and  Mr.  Whittington  chief  of  the  treasury  de- 
partment. Six  years  later,  when  the  original  sub- 
scribers were  called  upon  to  pay  the  remaining  ninety 
per  cent  on  their  stock,  they  refused,  whereupon  the 
new  board  confiscated  the  whole  of  the  original  sub- 
scription. 

At  the  end  of  1865,  Perham,  having  exhausted  his 
means  and  mental  and  physical  strength,  went  to  the 
wall,  like  Asa  Whitney.  He  succeeded,  however,  in 
interesting  a  number  of  Boston  capitalists,  notably 
Benjamin  P.  Cheney,  of  the  Vermont  Central  Eail- 
road,  and  proprietor  of  Cheney's  Express.  These  en- 
terprising New  Englanders,  having  paid  off  the  debts 
incurred  by  Perham,  appealed  to  Congress  for  aid  in 
building  the  road. 


186  THE  STORY  OP  THE  RAILROAD. 

Two  winters  were  now  wasted  in  Washington  in  an 
effort  to  secure  the  help  of  the  Government.  The 
"  down  East "  company  was  not  popular  in  the  West. 
The  fact  that  the  New  England  organization  favoured 
a  consolidation  or  combination  with  a  Canadian  line 
was  also  worked  hard  by  those  opposed  to  the  northern 
route  and  in  favour  of  the  Union  Pacific,  and  also  by 
a  great  many  public  men  who  were  opposed  to  granting 
land  to  any  company.  Senator  Sherman  was  a  bitter 
opponent  of  the  northern  route,  though  his  brother, 
General  Sherman,  was  one  of  the  earnest  workers  for  a 
road  to  the  Pacific. 

Early  in  1867  the  president  of  the  Northern  Pa- 
cific Company  conceived  the  idea  of  forming  a  rail- 
road syndicate  composed  chiefly  of  railroad  men. 
Through  the  efforts  of  his  friend,  Mr.  Thomas  H. 
Canfield,  of  Burlington,  Vt.,  he  succeeded  in  get- 
ting the  signatures  of  the  following  influential  men 
to  an  agreement  to  take  the  Northern  Pacific  franchise, 
debts,  and  other  disadvantages,  and  to  try  to  push  it  to 
a  practical  beginning,  if  not  to  completion.  The  first 
big  man  to  sign  what  was  afterward  known  as  the 
Original  Interest  Agreement  was  President  William  B. 
Ogden,  of  the  Chicago  and  Northwestern  Kailroad. 
Later  they  obtained  the  signatures  of  the  presidents  of 
the  Erie,  the  Pennsylvania,  the  Pittsburgh,  Fort 
Wayne  and  Chicago,  and  of  Vice-President  Fargo,  of 
the  New  York  Central.  Other  signers  of  the  Original 
Interest  Agreement  were  A.  H.  and  D.  N.  Barney,  and 
B.  P.  Cheney. 

The  new  syndicate  employed  an  eminent  engineer, 
Mr.  Edwin  F.  Johnson,  and  began  surveying  a  line, 


THE  NORTHERN  PACIFIC.  187 

lobbying  at  Washington,  and  printing  pamphlets.  In 
a  little  while  they  had  gone  into  their  private  purses 
for  a  quarter  of  a  million  dollars.  Despite  all  reverses, 
the  holders  of  the  franchise  still  clung  to  the  belief 
that  it  was  valuable.  True,  the  Government  gave  no 
financial  aid,  but  the  land  grant  was  double  the  amount 
per  mile  given  to  the  Union  and  to  the  Central  Com- 
pany, and  the  land  much  more  valuable.  At  all 
events,  it  was  so  regarded  at  that  time. 

In  1869,  just  after  the  completion  of  the  Union 
Pacific,  the  banking  firm  of  Jay  Cooke  and  Company 
was  asked  to  take  the  financial  agency  of  the  northern 
road.  Before  giving  an  answer,  the  big  banking  house 
sent  experts  of  its  own  to  explore  the  country  through 
which  the  proposed  road  was  to  run.  One  outfit  went 
round  to  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia,  while  another, 
accompanied  by  President  Smith,  explored  from  Lake 
Superior  to  the  Red  Eiver  of  the  North.  The  Pacific 
coast  party  was  chased  from  the  Yellowstone  by  In- 
dians, while  the  members  of  the  eastern  end  of  the  ex- 
pedition, together  with  their  military  escort,  were 
forced  to  fly  for  their  lives  from  Fort  Stevenson  to 
the  settlements  in  Minnesota,  pursued  by  a  big  band 
of  savages.  The  expert  engineer  of  the  banking  house 
put  the  cost  of  the  road  and  the  necessary  equipment  at 
$85,277,000,  an  average  of  $42,638  per  mile.  The  re- 
port was  on  the  whole  very  encouraging  to  the  banking 
house,  and  it  became  the  financial  agent  of  the  com- 
pany. 

The  main  terms  of  the  Jay  Cooke  contract  are  set 
down  in  Mr.  E.  V.  Smalle/s  History  of  the  Northern 
Pacific  Eailroad  as  follows: 


188  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

"  They  provided  for  an  issue  of  bonds  to  the 
amount  of  one  hundred  million  dollars,  bearing  interest 
at  the  rate  of  seven  and  three  tenths  per  cent  in  gold. 

"  The  banking  firm  credited  the  railroad  with 
eighty-eight  cents  on  the  dollar  for  the  bonds  it  sold, 
and  as  it  disposed  of  them  at  par  its  margin  was  a 
very  liberal  one.  But  the  contract  gave  it  two  hundred 
dollars  of  the  stock  of  the  company  for  every  thousand 
dollars  of  bonds  sold,  which  would  have  amounted,  for 
the  completed  road,  to  about  twenty  million  dollars, 
and  one  half  of  the  remainder  of  the  one  hundred  mil- 
lion dollars  of  stock  authorized  by  the  charter. 

"  The  twelve  original  proprietary  interests  which 
owned  the  stock  were  increased  to  twenty-four,  and 
twelve  of  them  assigned  to  Jay  Cooke  and  Company.  A 
considerable  amount  of  the  stock  was  given  by  the 
banking  house  to  subscribers  to  the  bonds,  but  in  all 
cases  an  irrevocable  power  of  attorney  was  taken,  so 
that  the  firm,  having  purchased  a  thirteenth  interest, 
controlled  the  management  of  the  company's  affairs. 
Other  specifications  in  the  contract  made  the  firm  the 
sole  financial  agent  of  the  road,  and  the  sole  depositary 
of  its  funds;  provided  for  the  conversion  of  the  six 
hundred  thousand  dollars  of  stock  outstanding  into 
bonds  at  fifty  cents  on  the  dollar,  created  a  land  com- 
pany to  manage  the  town  sites,  and  bound  the  firm  to 
raise  five  million  dollars  within  thirty  days,  with  which 
the  company  was  immediately  to  commence  building 
the  road." 

A  y)ool  was  formed  in  riiiladol]ihia  to  furnish  the 
five  million  dollars  that  had  to  be  paid  in  at  once  for 
the  beginning  of  construction  work.    The  members  of 


THE  NORTHERN  PACIFIC.  189 

the  pool  took  the  bonds  at  par  and  received  the  twelve 
proprietary  interests  at  fifty  dollars  each.  Out  of  this 
little  deal  the  banking  house  made  considerably  more 
than  a  million  dollars.  By  the  time  the  road  reached 
Eed  Eiver  each  of  the  twelve  proprietary  shares  had 
earned  a  little  over  a  half  million  dollars'  worth  of 
stock.  A  company  had  been  formed  to  speculate  in 
real  estate  along  the  line — destroying  old  and  building 
up  new  camps,  planting  county  seats  and  settling  waste 
places,  one  half  the  profits  of  which  went  to  the  bank. 

The  Congress  of  the  United  States,  which  had 
stood  firm  against  the  combined  pull  and  push  of  the 
powerful  railroad  syndicate,  went  down  at  the  first  fire 
from  the  great  gold-clad  cruiser.  Jay  Cooke  and  Com- 
pany. 

To  be  sure,  the  truly  virtuous  men  of  both  houses 
made  a  strong  fight,  but  they  were  outgunned  by  the 
opposing  fleet.  The  joint  resolution  upon  which  the 
fight  was  made  was  introduced  in  1870,  authorizing 
the  issue  of  bonds  secured  by  the  land  grant  as  well 
as  the  railroad  property,  including  even  the  filing  of 
the  mortgage  in  the  office  of  the  Secretary  of  the  In- 
terior. It  practically  enlarged  the  area  of  the  land 
grant  to  thirty  miles  in  the  States  and  fifty  miles  in  the 
territories  on  each  side  of  the  line. 

Yet,  with  all  the  advantage  enjoyed  by  the  banking 
house  in  the  way  of  gifts  of  interest,  commissions,  and 
the  absolute  control  of  the  financial  end  of  the  enter- 
prise. Jay  Cooke  and  Company  found  it  hard  to  raise 
the  money.  A  deal  had  been  made,  and  nearly  carried 
out,  by  which  a  syndicate  of  European  bankers  was 
to  take  fifty  million  dollars'  worth  of  the  bonds,  but  at 
U 


190  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

that  moment  Napoleon  III  began  to  make  trouble  for 
himself  on  the  Ehine,  and  tlie  deal  fell  through. 

By  liberal  advertising  in  almost  every  available 
space  Jay  Cooke  and  Company  succeeded  in  raising  a 
considerable  amount  of  money  by  the  sale  of  bonds  (the 
interest  upon  which  was  payable  in  gold)  in  the  United 
States.  Thousands  of  names  were  written  upon  the  big 
books  in  the  great  banking  house,  many  of  them  the 
names  of  comparatively  poor  people.  The  Cookes  now 
used  for  advertising  purposes  the  speeches  of  con- 
gressmen who  had  opposed  the  land  grant  upon  the 
ground  that  the  land  was  rich,  fertile,  and  extremely 
valuable. 

Actual  construction  work  on  the  Northern  Pacific 
was  begun  in  the  summer  of  1870,  at  Thompson's  Junc- 
tion on  the  Lake  Superior  and  Mississippi  Eailroad, 
also  controlled  by  Jay  Cooke  and  Company.  Within 
the  following  twenty-four  months  more  than  thirty 
million  dollars  were  received  from  the  sale  of  bonds, 
and  it  seemed  that  nothing  could  break  the  big  bank 
that  was  back  of  the  Northern  Pacific  Eailroad.  The 
house  had  already  made  an  enviable  reputation  and 
much  money  by  placing  the  Government's  war  loans, 
and  now  thousands  were  eager  to  trust  their  savings 
to  it. 

Early  in  1878  the  company  took  the  completed  por- 
tion of  the  road  as  far  west  as  Ecd  Eiver  from  the  con- 
tractors and  opened  it  for  traffic.  The  Lake  Superior 
and  Mississippi  was  leased,  and  a  controlling  interest 
bought  in  the  Oregon  Steam  Navigation  Company,  op- 
erating nearly  all  the  steamboat  lines  on  Puget  Sound, 
the  Columbia,  Snake,  and  "Willamette  rivers,  making 


THE  NORTHERN  PACIFIC.  191 

connection  with  the  ocean  steamers  to  San  Francisco. 
The  Northern  Pacific  Company  by  this  latter  purchase 
came  also  into  possession  of  the  portage  railroad 
at  The  Dalles  and  Cascades  on  the  Columbia,  which 
gave  it  control  of  nearly  all  the  transportation  facili- 
ties then  existing  in  Oregon  and  Washington  Terri- 
tories. 

Despite  the  liberal  flow  of  money  into  the  bank 
at  the  East,  the  rapidity  with  which  it  was  spent  at 
the  West  found  the  company  embarrassed  as  early  as 
August,  1872.  President  Smith,  who  seems  to  have 
given  the  road  its  first  real  start,  now  resigned.  The 
house  of  Jay  Cooke  and  Company  went  to  the  wall  in 
the  panic  of  1873,  and  in  1875  a  receiver  was  ap- 
pointed for  the  Northern  Pacific  Eailroad  Company. 

Jay  Cooke  and  Company  had  advanced  to  the  rail- 
road company  a  million  and  a  half  dollars  to  push  con- 
struction, while  the  directors  of  the  road  had  borrowed 
on  their  own  individual  credit  vast  sums  of  money  to 
hurry  on  to  the  Pacific,  and  now  it  all  had  to  stop. 

In  1875  General  George  W.  Cass,  who  was  presi- 
dent of  the  company,  was  appointed  receiver.  The 
winding  up  of  the  business  of  the  bankrupt  road  by 
Judge  Nathaniel  Shipman,  the  shutting  off  of  lawyers 
who  were  anxious  for  delay,  and  the  shutting  out  of 
the  financial  undertakers,  who  are  always  waiting  about 
to  receive  the  remains  of  a  dead  enterprise,  was  a  big 
piece  of  work  justly  and  ably  performed  by  the  court. 
The  bonds  bought  from  Jay  Cooke  and  Company  were 
converted  into  preferred  stock,  the  thirty-three  million 
dollars  of  debt  wiped  out,  and  the  original  bond- 
holders left  in  possession  of  five  hundred  and  seventy- 


192  THE  STORY  OP  THE  RAILROAD. 

five  miles  of  road  and  ten  million  acres  of  land  free 
of  encumbrance. 

Mr.  C.  B.  Wright,  who  became  president  of  the 
Northern  Pacific  when  General  Cass  was  appointed 
receiver,  was  succeeded  by  Mr.  Frederick  Billings  in 
1879.  Mr.  Billings  was  able  to  raise  money,  and  the 
work  of  completing  the  road  was  recommenced.  He 
succeeded  in  interesting  Messrs.  Drexel,  Morgan  and 
Company  and  Messrs.  Winslow,  Lanier  and  Company, 
and  through  these  big  firms  secured  the  funds  for  the 
completion  of  the  road  in  1883,  just  about  a  half  cen- 
tury from  the  time  when  the  subject  of  a  Pacific  rail- 
road had  begun  to  be  agitated  in  the  press,  and  thirty 
years  after  the  first  survey  had  been  made. 

In  the  general  shaking  up  of  1873  the  Northern 
Pacific  lost  the  footing  it  had  gained  by  purchasing 
a  controlling  interest  in  the  steamboat  business  on  the 
Columbia.  In  this  way  the  back  door  was  left  open, 
and  a  new  man  slipped  in,  who  was  destined  to  mix 
things  for  Mr.  Billings  and  others  who  had  come  into 
possession  of  the  then  unfinished  railroad. 

This  unknown  man  was  Mr.  Henry  Villard,  a  Ger- 
man-born journalist,  who  developed  into  one  of  the 
great  promoters  of  the  day.  In  the  interest  of  a  syn- 
dicate of  New  York  capitalists,  Mr,  Villard  came  up 
through  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  for  the  first  time 
in  1874.  Later  he  represented  the  bondholders  of  the 
Kansas  Pacific,  also  suffering  from  the  short  crops  of 
1873.  In  187fi  he  was  appointed  one  of  the  receivers 
of  Ihc  Kansas  Pacific,  and  afterward  removed  by  the 
sanic  cniiH.  Some  of  Mr.  Villard's  friends  have  com- 
]iliiiii(<l  tli.it  -lay  Gould  wanted  to  run  everything  in 


o  f. 


2.        ^-J'- 


THE  NORTHERN  PACIFIC.  193 

his  own  way  in  the  reorganization  of  the  Kansas  road, 
and  that  he  violated  every  agreement  made  with  the 
original  owners.  As  to  Mr.  Gould's  desire  to  run 
things,  it  might  be  put  down  as  an  interesting  bit  of 
history  that  Mr.  Villard  showed  as  much  ambition  in 
that  direction  as  did  he,  and  almost  as  much  ability. 

Finding  an  open  door,  he  came  into  the  territory 
of  the  Northern  Pacific  and  looked  about.  It  wanted 
but  a  glance  for  a  man  with  such  a  nose  for  business 
to  see  the  possibilities  of  the  Columbia  River  and  of 
Oregon.  He  secured  an  option  on  the  controlling  in- 
terest of  the  navigation  companies,  the  right  of  way 
for  a  railroad  up  the  Columbia  Valley,  and  other  valu- 
able franchises.  He  knew  that  the  original  intention 
of  the  Union  Pacific  Company  had  been  to  drop  a 
line  from  Wyoming  across  Idaho  into  the  Pacific  at 
Portland,  Ore.,  and  now  he  proposed  to  find  the 
money  for  half  the  road  if  the  Union  Pacific  would 
find  the  other  half,  which  would  give  them,  with  their 
Central  Pacific  connection  at  Ogden,  two  legs  of  a 
"  Y,"  with  one  foot  on  San  Francisco  and  the  other 
on  Portland.  The  Union  Pacific  spent  a  few  days 
in  investigating  the  matter;  then  it  declined  the  offer, 
and  spent  a  few  years  in  regretting  it. 

Mr.  Villard  did  not  despair.  He  sought  help  else- 
where, secured  it,  and  in  1879  incorporated  the  Ore- 
gon Railway  and  Na\agation  Company.  The  work  of 
constructing  a  railroad  on  the  south  bank  of  the  beau- 
tiful Columbia  began  the  same  year.  This  was  going 
to  be  a  good  road  to  own  so  long  as  it  had  no  rival, 
but  the  Northern  Pacific  was  liable  to  build  down  the 
north  bank  of  the  Columbia,  and  Mr.  Villard  set  about 


194   .         Tfil!  STORY  OP^  THE  RAILROAD. 

to  prevent  the  construction  of  that  line.  He  intro- 
duced himself  to  the  Northern  Pacific  and  asked  for  a 
traffic  arrangement.  Having  induced  the  Northern 
Pacific  to  use  the  Oregon  Kailvvay  and  Navigation 
Company's  track  to  Portland,  he  endeavoured  to  se- 
cure an  agreement  to  use  it  for  all  time,  and  a  promise 
that  the  Northern  Pacific  would  not  build  down  the 
Columbia. 

That  was  good  business.  There  is  no,.valid  rea- 
son for  building  two  roads  where  there  is  a  living  for 
but  one,  but  the  Northern  Pacific  would  not  agree. 
Now  Mr,  Villard  began  to  develop  into  a  promoter. 
It  was  in  1880,  when  money  was  piled  up  ready  to 
be  risked.  He  did  not  tell  even  his  closest  friends 
what  was  in  his  mind.  To  his  business  acquaintances 
in  the  East  he  sent  an  invitation  to  join  him  in  a  new 
company  he  was  about  to  form.  They  were  invited 
to  make  up  a  pot  of  eight  million  dollars  and  ask  no 
questions. 

There  was  a  certain  amount  of  mystery  about  the 
transaction.  Almost  every  one  who  received  this  in- 
vitation to  come  in  on  the  ground  floor  felt  that  he 
had  been  let  into  a  great  secret,  subscribed  and  asked 
for  more  without  knowing  exactly  what  he  was  about. 
The  next  day  Mr.  Villard  had  the  money.  Then  he 
called  a  meeting,  explained  his  scheme,  asked  for  twelve 
million  dollars  more,  and  got  them.  When  everything 
had  been  arranged,  the  young  organizer  nipped  enough 
Northern  Pacific  stock  to  put  his  company  in  control 
of  the  road. 

Before  this  Mr.  Villard,  with  a  limited  amount  of 
modesty,  had  asked  for  a  seat  with  the  Northern  Pa- 


THE  NORTHERN  PACIFIC.  195 

cific  directors,  but  had  failed  to  get  it.  Now  he  strolled 
in,  smiling,  and  rested  his  hand  on  the  back  of  Mr. 
Billings's  chair.  "  Keep  your  seat,  keep  your  seat,"  he 
said,  as  that  gentleman  started  to  rise.  "  Don't  get  up 
on  my  account.  This  is  all  done  in  the  interest  of 
the  Northern  Pacific  Railroad  Company,  and  not  for 
the  benefit  of  the  Oregon  line." 

Now,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  Mr.  Billings  was  really 
anxious  to  give  up  the  presidency  of  the  road,  and 
without  more  ado  he  got  out  of  the  chair.  It  had  all 
come  about  so  swiftly  and  suddenly  that  the  general 
himself  was  surprised.  He  was  not  ready  to  assume 
the  active  management  of  the  property,  and  it  was 
arranged  that  Mr.  A.  H.  Barney  should  take  the  presi- 
dency for  a  year,  when  Mr.  Villard,  to  whom  had  been 
refused  a  seat  on  the  board,  took  his  place  at  the  head 
of  the  table. 

If  Jay  Gould  ever  rounded  up  a  railroad,  corralled 
a  company,  or  roped  and  marked  a  maverick  for  his 
own  more  neatly  or  completely,  his  historians  have 
failed  to  record  the  incident.  The  striking  difference 
between  Mr.  Gould  and  some  of  his  opponents  was  that 
the  former  never  squealed  when  he  happened  to  come 
out  second  best.  The  ultimate  aim  and  ambition  of 
all  the  magnates  was  the  same.* 

Later  the  Oregon  line  became  an  independent  road, 
or  rather  a  system  of  roads.  A  few  years  ago  it  was 
being  operated  as  a  part  of  the  vast  Union  Pacific 
system,  but  was  lost  in  the  break-up  of  1893,  just  as 

*  It  is  not  within  the  province  of  this  book  to  trace  the 
financial  vicissitudes  of  the  Northern  Pacific  within  the  last 
fifteen  years. 


196  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

the  Northern  Pacific  Company  lost  it  twenty  years  be- 
fore. To-day  it  is  being  operated  as  an  independent 
line.  It  was  from  the  start,  has  remained,  and  is  now 
one  of  the  very  best  pieces  of  railroad  property  in  all 
the  West. 

Millions  of  men  and  women  know  the  beautiful 
river  that  runs  from  Albany  into  the  Atlantic  Ocean. 
The  writer  has  seen  it  from  the  engine  of  the  Em- 
pire State  express  at  a  mile  a  minute,  when  the  oak 
leaves,  turning  with  the  touch  of  Time,  were  all  aflame 
with  the  fire  of  a  dying  day.  And  yet,  watching  from 
the  window  of  a  car  as  it  winds  along  the  banks  of 
the  noblest  river  of  the  Pacific  slope,  in  the  shadows 
of  wild,  native  woods,  hearing  the  splash  and  feeling 
the  spray  of  foaming  falls,  one  is  apt  to  say  that  the 
hills  of  the  Hudson  are  the  banks  of  a  sleepy  canal 
compared  to  the  wild  grandeur  of  the  beautiful  Co- 
lumbia. 


CHAPTER   XVII. 

THE    CANADIAN    PACIFIC. 

Before  the  Canadian  Pacific  Railway,  or  back  of  it, 
there  was  the  beginning,  in  1867,  of  the  Dominion  of 
Canada,  created  by  the  confederation  of  the  several 
provinces  under  a  general  government.  Before  that  there 
were  Indians,  and  back  of  the  Indians  the  mountains, 
lakes,  and  forest;  but  back  of  everything  was  the  Hud- 
son Bay  Company.  That  institution  seems  always  to 
have  been  here.  A  half  hundred  years  ago  its  trappers 
were  found  on  nearly  every  river  that  ran  between 
the  Arctic  Ocean  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  The  early 
pathfinders  crossing  the  plains  took  tips  from  these 
men,  and  the  first  overland  caravans  were  often  piloted 
along  the  old  Santa  Fe  trail  by  the  fur-catchers  from 
Canada.  Having  been  here  always,  the  Hudson  Bay 
Company  claimed  the  earth  by  right  of  discovery,  or, 
at  least,  all  of  it  that  lay  between  the  Rocky  Mountains 
and  the  watershed  of  Lake  Superior. 

Now,  the  Canadian  Government,  being  ambitious, 
wanted  a  dominion  washed  by  the  waters  of  the  Pacific 
as  well  as  by  the  Atlantic,  but  before  it  could  hope  to 
have  absolute  empire  over  all  the  vast  region  that 
reached  from  ocean  to  ocean  it  must  do  away  with  the 
Hudson  Bay  Company,  which  had  a  government  of  its 
own.     The  company  was  disposed  of  by  a  cash  pay- 

197 


198  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

ment  of  a  million  and  a  half  dollars,  the  retention  of 
its  occupied  posts,  and  five  per  cent  of  all  lands  lying 
between  the  Eed  Eiver  Valley  on  the  east  and  the 
Rocky  Mountains  on  the  west,  and  extending  as  far 
north  as  the  great  Saskatchewan.  This  purchase  car- 
ried the  Dominion  of  Canada  to  a  line  marked  by  the 
summit  of  the  Eocky  Mountains,  between  the  forty- 
ninth  and  the  fifty-fourth  parallel,  thence  on  the  one 
hundred  and  twentieth  meridian  to  the  sixtieth  paral- 
lel, which  lines  form  the  eastern  boundary  of  the  Pa- 
cific province,  British  Columbia,  north  of  which  the 
Dominion  was  extended  westward  to  the  one  hundred 
and  forty-first  meridian  west  of  Greenwich,  which  is 
the  eastern  boundary  of  Alaska  in  that  latitude.  This 
was  one  of  the  largest  real-estate  transactions  on  record. 
In  1871  British  Columbia  entered  the  union,  thus 
extending  the  Dominion  of  Canada  to  the  Pacific 
Ocean.  The  principal  condition  of  this  union  was 
that  the  Dominion  should  within  ten  years  connect 
by  rail  the  seaboard  of  British  Columbia  with  the  rail- 
road system  of  Canada,  construction  to  commence  at 
the  Pacific  coast  in  1873.  Surveys  were  immediately 
commenced  and  prosecuted  for  years,  but  the  work 
of  construction  was  not  begun  until  1875,  and  then 
not  at  the  Pacific  coast,  but  at  the  Lake  Superior 
end.  Work  at  the  coast  was  not  commenced  until 
1879.  Some  of  the  delay  is  accounted  for  by  the  fact 
tbat  tlie  records  of  the  first  three  years'  survey  were 
destroyed  by  fire  in  Ottawa  early  in  1874.* 

*  These  facts  and  figures  are  taken  from  a  paper  read  by  Mr. 
Thomas  C.  Keefer,  President  Am.  See.  C.  E.,  at  Milwaukee,  in 

1888. 


THE  CANADIAN   rACIFIC.  199 

The  Parliament  of  Canada  had  decided  in  1873 
that  the  road  should  be  constructed  and  operated  by 
a  private  corporation  subsidized  by  the  Government, 
and  a  contract  was  made  in  that  year  with  the  late 
Sir  Hugh  Allan  for  its  construction  within  ten  years, 
and  its  operation  for  a  similar  period  on  the  basis  of  a 
subsidy  of  thirty  million  dollars  cash  and  fifty  million 
acres  of  land.  Sir  Hugh  controlled  a  transatlantic 
steamship  line,  and  desired  the  railroad  for  inland 
connection.  This  excited  powerful  antagonism,  and 
his  project  was  so  discredited  in  the  money  market 
that  he  failed  to  form  his  company.  The  Government 
also  was  defeated  on  a  question  arising  out  of  this 
contract,  and  retired.  The  new  Government  was 
bound  to  carry  out  the  agreement  with  British  Co- 
lumbia, but,  not  feeling  responsible  for  its  details, 
did  not  regard  time  as  the  essence  of  the  contract, 
and  considered  it  an  impossible  one  in  that  respect, 
especially  after  Sir  Hugh  Allan's  failure.  It  was  de- 
termined, therefore,  in  1874,  to  proceed  with  it  as  a 
public  work,  and  construction  was  commenced  be- 
tween Lake  Superior  and  the  prairie  region  in  the 
following  year.  The  Government  of  1874  was  de- 
feated in  1878,  its  opponents  returning  to  power. 
They,  after  continuing  the  construction  as  a  pub- 
lic work  until  1880,  reverted  to  their  original  policy 
of  construction  by  a  private  company.  The  terms 
of  the  contract  with  this  private  (the  present)  com- 
pany were: 

1.  Twenty-five  million  dollars  cash  and  twenty- 
five  million  acres  of  selected  land  in  the  fertile  belt, 
in  addition  to  the  right  of  way  for  track  and  stations, 


200  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

shops,  docks,  and  wharves  on  or  through  public  prop- 
erty. 

2.  Free  import  of  all  steel  rails  and  fastenings, 
fence  and  bridge  material  in  wood  or  iron  for  origi- 
nal construction,  and  telegraph  wire  and  instruments 
for  first  equipment. 

3.  The  Government  sections  under  contract — about 
seven  hundred  miles — to  be  completed,  with  stations 
and  water  service,  but  without  rolling  stock,  and 
handed  over  to  the  company  on  the  completion  of 
that  contract  as  a  free  gift.  This  seven  hundred 
miles  of  road  had  cost  the  Government  thirty  million 
dollars. 

4.  Perpetual  exemption  from  taxation  by  the  Fed- 
eral Government. 

5.  No  line  to  be  chartered  south  of  the  Canadian 
Pacific  for  a  period  of  twenty  years,  except  for  a  direc- 
tion southwest  or  west  of  south. 

The  company  bound  itself  to  build  two  thousand 
miles  of  road  and  to  operate  the  transcontinental  line 
for  a  period  of  ten  years.  The  road  when  completed 
was  to  be  as  good  as  the  Union  Pacific  was  found 
to  be  in  1873,  four  years  after  the  last  spike  was 
driven.* 

♦  "  When  the  Canadian  Pacific  was  about  to  be  built,  the 
Dominion  Government,  some  time  in  1873  or  1874,  examined  the 
Union  Pacific  Railroad  carefully,  and,  in  making  its  contract  for 
the  building  of  the  Canadian  Pacific,  used  the  Union  Pacific  as 
its  standard  ;  and  there  occurs  a  clause  in  their  contract  which 
provides  that  the  Canadian  Pacific,  when  completed,  shall  be 
equal  in  all  its  parts  (in  roadbed,  structures,  alignments,  and 
equipment)  to  the  Union  Pacific  as  found  in  the  year  1874  ;  and 
that  Government  is  now  (1888)  making  a  settlement  with  its  con- 


THE  CANADIAN  PACIFIC.  201 

The  capital  stock  of  the  Canadian  Pacific  Company 
was  fixed  at  one  hundred  million  dollars.  Here,  as  in 
the  building  of  other  transcontinental  lines,  great  cal- 
culations were  made  and  vast  sums  of  money  expected 
from  the  sale  of  lands,  but  these  could  not  be  sold  for 
the  simple  reason  that  the  Government  was  giving 
away  land  that  was  Just  as  good.  By  the  autumn  of 
1883  sixty-five  million  dollars  of  the  capital  stock  had 
been  sold  and  all  the  money  expended  in  construction. 

Rival  interests  now  assailed  the  road,  aided  by  the 
Government's  political  opponents,  creating  such  dis- 
trust that  the  remainder  of  the  capital  stock  could  not 
be  sold  at  all.  About  this  time  the  Northern  Pacific 
was  in  trouble,  creating  a  bad  state  of  affairs  in  the 
money  market,  and  altogether  the  Canadian  Pacific 
Company  was  in  a  bad  way.  Early  in  1884  the  com- 
pany was  obliged  to  apply  to  the  Dominion  Govern- 
ment for  a  loan  of  $23,500,000.  This  made  a  total 
loan  of  $29,880,000,  to  secure  which  the  Government 
took  a  lien  upon  the  entire  property  of  the  company. 
In  consideration  of  this  loan,  the  company  agreed  to 
complete  the  transcontinental  line  by  May  1,  1886, 
five  years  ahead  of  time. 

The  road  was  now  being  built  at  the  rate  of  nearly 
five  hundred  miles  a  year.  Parts  of  it  were  comparative- 
ly cheap,  others  extremely  expensive.  There  is  one  mile 
of  the  Canadian  Pacific,  along  the  eastern  shore  of 
Lake  Superior,  where  the  rock  work  was  very  heavy, 
that  is  said  to  have  cost  the  company  nearly  three 

tractors,  and  claiming  that  the  Canadian  Pacific  has  not  yet  been 
brought  to  that  standard." — General  Dodge,  Chief  Engineer 
U7iion  Pacific  Railroad. 


202  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

quarters  of  a  million  dollars  before  the  naked  track 
was  ready  for  a  train  to  pass.  And  so,  with  this  rapid, 
expensive  road  making,  the  company  was  soon  in  finan- 
cial difficulties  again.  Again  it  was  forced  to  turn 
to  the  Government,  which  seems  to  have  stood  loyally 
by  the  road,  no  matter  what  political  faction  was  man- 
aging the  public  finances.* 

It  took  a  vast  amount  of  capital,  as  well  as  of  cour- 
age, to  carry  a  main  line  of  railroad  from  Montreal 
to  the  Pacific  through  a  country  that  was  for  the  most 
part  not  settled  at  all.  It  was  like  building  over  the 
American  Desert.  No  man  could  say  what  the  road 
would  cost  in  the  first  place,  and  what  the  cost  of 
keeping  it  open  would  be,  or  give  a  reasonable  guess 
as  to  its  earning  capacity.  The  engineers  had  been 
able  to  make  out  that  there  would  be  a  lot  of  heavy 
rock  work  along  the  lake  region,  "  muskege  "  in  the 
moorlands,  "  gumbo  "  on  the  slopes,  and  snow  on  the 
mountains.  The  passes,  compared  with  other  passes 
in  the  Eockies,  were  surprisingly  low,  but  in  the  North- 
west even  a  low  mountain  can  make  trouble. 

The  Eocky  Mountains  dip  down  as  they  go  north, 
terminating  as  a  distinct  range  near  the  fifty-second 
parallel,  where  they  are  cut  short  by  the  Peace  Eiver, 

*  "  The  Canadian  Pacific  Railway  is  the  work  of  Canada  ex- 
chisively.  The  road  was  undertaken  by  Canada  as  a  political 
and  commercial  one,  to  fulfil  the  compact  with  British  Columbia, 
and  unite  together  all  the  provinces  of  the  Confederacy,  but 
chiefly  in  order  to  develop  the  vast  estate  purchased  from  the 
Hudson  Bay  Company.  It  has  been  carried  out  by  her  people 
without  any  assistance  from  the  Imperial  Government — not  even 
the  endorsement  of  Canadian  securities  to  obtain  a  low  rate  of 
interest." — Tfiomas  C.  Kicefkr,  Chief  Engineer, 


THE  CANADIAN  PACIFIC.  203 

which  heads  in  behind  them,  draining  the  table-land 
between  the  Coast  Eange  and  the  Kockies.  The  Denver 
and  Eio  Grande  and  the  Colorado  Midland  cross  the 
continental  divide  ten  thousand  feet  or  more  above 
the  sea.  The  Union  Pacific  crosses  at  a  little  over 
eight  thousand  feet,  the  Northern  Pacific  at  a  still 
lower  altitude,  while  the  Canadian  Pacific,  the  farthest 
north  of  all  the  transcontinental  lines,  reaches  the 
crest  of  the  continent  only  five  thousand  two  hundred 
and  ninety-six  feet  above  tide  water.  Between  the  in- 
ternational boundary  and  Peace  Eiver  ten  passes  were 
explored  by  the  Canadian  Pacific  engineers,  all  lower- 
ing northward,  from  seven  thousand  to  two  thousand 
feet.  The  range,  which  is  sixty  miles  wide  at  the 
forty-ninth  parallel,  narrows  to  forty  miles  before  it 
reaches  Peace  River,  where  it  practically  pinches  out. 
The  three  mainland  ranges  crossed  by  the  Canadian 
Pacific  are  the  Coast  Range,  the  Gold  Range,  and  the 
Rockies  (whose  rivers  run  down  to  the  Arctic  Ocean 
and  Hudson  Bay  on  the  north  and  east,  and  into  the 
Pacific  on  the  west),  extending  from  the  eastern  slope 
of  the  Rockies  to  the  end  of  the  track  at  Vancouver, 
a  distance  of  five  hundred  and  twenty-two  miles. 

In  Colorado  the  timber  line  is  reached  at  about 
eleven  thousand  feet,  while  in  the  Canadian  Rockies 
nothing  grows  over  seven  thousand  feet  above  tide 
water.  At  six  thousand  feet  snow  falls  in  every  month 
of  the  year  in  the  Northwest,  while  in  Colorado,  Utah, 
or  Nevada  delightful  valleys  lay  six  and  eight  thousand 
feet  above  the  ocean,  bathed  in  almost  perpetual  sun- 
shine in  summer  and  a  great  part  of  the  time  in  winter, 
with  no  snow  between  May  and  October.    That  is  why 


204:  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

the  ranges  in  the  North  were  so  much  dreaded  before 
the  road  was  built.  It  took  years  of  tireless  watching 
and  "  sleeping  out "  on  the  part  of  the  engineers  to 
solve  the  snow  problem.  They  had  to  get  acquainted 
with  the  country  and  the  avalanche  and  learn  to 
handle  it,  and  at  the  same  time  to  take  care  of  what 
they  call  the  "  flurry  "—the  local  hurricane  produced 
by  the  passing  of  a  snovvslide.  Trees  standing  one 
hundred  yards  clear  of  the  path  of  an  avalanche  have 
been  clipped  off  short  fifty  feet  above  the  ground. 
Others  even  farther  away  have  had  their  trunks  packed 
full  of  fine  snow,  so  hard  that  a  cat  could  not  scratch 
it.  If  a  slide  struck  a  crag  and  shied  off,  the  "  flurry  " 
kept  straight  ahead  over  the  obstruction,  sweeping 
everything  before  it  for  hundreds  of  yards.  A  big 
avalanche — one  travelling  rapidly — accompanied  by  a 
good  "  flurry  "  is  said  to  be  about  the  wildest  thing 
ever  seen  in  the  hills.  To  steer  the  avalanche  away 
from  the  openings  between  sheds,  the  engineers  built 
"  A  "  splits — triangular  pens  filled  with  stone  or  dirt 
— above  the  gap,  which  caused  the  slide  to  part  and 
pass  on  either  side  and  over  the  tops  of  the  snowsheds, 
which  in  a  slide  country  are  very  substantially  built. 
It  is  an  interesting  fact,  however,  that  there  were  ten 
years  ago  nearly  ten  times  as  many  miles  of  snow- 
sheds  on  the  Central  Pacific,  which  crosses  the  conti- 
nental divide  near  the  forty-second  parallel,  as  there 
were  on  the  Canadian  Pacific.*     Probably  no  other 

*  "  There  are  said  to  be  six  miles  of  staunchly  built  snow- 
sbods  on  the  Canadian  Pacific,  and  sixty  miles  on  the  Central 
Pacific  Railway." — Tqomas  Curtis  Clakkk,  The  American  Rail- 
way. 


THE  CANADIAN  PACIFIC.  205 

railroad  in  the  world  has  a  more  substantial  and  com- 
plete shed  system  than  has  been  here  worked  out  by 
that  eminent  American  manager,  Sir  William  Van 
Horn,  and  his  assistants,  superintendents,  and  en- 
gineers.* 

While  the  climatic  conditions  were  more  or  less 
against  the  builders  of  the  Canadian  Pacific,  the  In- 
dians were  not.  Either  they  had  a  better  breed  of 
Indian  up  North  or  a  better  way  of  handling  him.  At 
all  events,  they  seem  to  have  made  little  or  no  trouble 
for  the  trail  makers.  Only  when  fired  by  a  dash  of 
the  blood  of  the  paleface  or  an  overdose  of  fire-water 
did  her  Majesty's  red  children  make  trouble. 

Infinite'  pains  must  have  been  taken  by  the  en- 
gineers who  located  the  line  of  the  Canadian  Pacific. 
The  road  runs  from  Montreal  to  Lake  Superior  with  a 
maximum  grade  in  either  direction  of  one  per  cent 
and  a  minimum  curvature  of  six  degrees.  In  but  one 
place — going  west  from  Lake  Superior — does  the  grade 
exceed  one  per  cent  until  the  Eocky  Mountains  are 
reached.  All  the  gradients  on  the  main  line  that  ex- 
ceed one  per  cent  are  encountered  on  a  stretch  of  one 
hundred  and  thirty-four  miles  between  Bow  Eiver 
in  the  Pockies  and  Illecillewalt,  on  the  western  slope 
of  the  Selkirk  Mountains.  Instead  of  following  the 
Columbia  Piver  round  a  long,  horseshoe  bend,  the 
road  climbed  over  the  Selkirks,  saving  nearly  a  hun- 
dred miles,  the  short  cut  being  less  than  one  third 
the  distance  travelled  by  the  river.    The  pass  over  the 

*  Sir  William  Van  Horn,  formerly   General  Manager,  and 
now  President  of  the  Canadian  Pacific,  is  an  American  by  birth. 
He  began  as  a  timekeeper  on  the  Illinois  Central. 
15 


206  ^HU  STORY  OP  THE  RAILROAD. 

Selkirks,  which  is  only  forty-three  hundred  feet  above 
the  Pacific,  was  discovered  after  months  of  hard  work 
"by  Major  Albert  B.  Rogers,  one  of  the  most  persistent 
and  skilful  of  American  engineers.  It  is  said  to  be  one 
of  the  few  passes  on  this  continent  where  the  locomo- 
tive has  blazed  the  trail  for  the  Indian,  the  scout,  and 
the  prospector. 

The  last  spike  in  the  Canadian  Pacific  was  driven 
in  1885,  but  no  attempt  was  made  to  work  the  trans- 
continental line  during  the  following  winter.  The 
track-laying  had  been  rushed  to  complete  the  line,  and 
now  the  winter  shot  down  and  closed  it.  Engineers, 
provided  with  meteorological  instruments,  snowshoes, 
and  dog-trains,  stayed  in  the  country  to  get  acquainted 
with  the  "  flurry  "  and  the  slide.  During  the  sum- 
mer of  1886  snowsheds  were  built,  with  troughs  at  the 
tops,  through  which  ran  water  from  adjacent  springs, 
to  be  used  in  case  of  fire,  and  with  "  splits  "  to  protect 
the  open  breathing  spaces  between  the  sheds,  for  long 
sheds  are  dangerous;  they  hold  the  smoke  from  the 
locomotives,  darkening  the  interior,  and  hiding  the 
signals  of  trainmen,  as  well  as  making  it  difficult  to 
hear  the  whistle  of  the  engine.  There  is  no  more 
dangerous  place  for  train  and  enginemen  on  the  rail 
than  in  a  long  snowshed  on  a  steep  grade. 

It  is  on  the  slope  of  the  Selkirks  that  the  "  gumbo  " 
is  found.  This  is  a  sandy  loam  quicksand,  which  oozes 
out  of  the  sides  of  the  cuts  and  covers  the  track.  The 
oozing  was  finally  stopped  by  driving  a  double  row 
of  piles  on  either  side  of  the  track  and  filling  the  space 
between  them  with  coarse  gravel  or  broken  rock. 

On  leaving  the  Columbia,  the  line  crosses  the  Gold 


^HE  CANADIAN  PACIFIC.  ^07 

Range  through  the  Eagle  Pass,  a  remarkably  favour- 
able one,  the  summit  being  only  eighteen  hundred 
feet  above  tide,  although  in  a  range  with  many  snow- 
capped mountains.  From  the  western  side  of  the  Gold 
Range  the  line  follows  the  shores  of  lakes  and  rivers, 
which  discharge  into  the  Pacific  Ocean  upon  Canadian 
soil.  In  crossing  the  dry  zone,  or  bunch-grass  grazing 
plateau  of  British  Columbia,  there  is  heavy  work  and 
tunnelling  along  the  rock-bound  shores  of  tlie  lakes; 
but  it  is  when  the  line  descends  the  Thompson  and 
Fraser  Rivers,  where  these  cut  through  the  Coast 
Range,  that  the  heaviest  consecutive  hundred  miles 
on  the  whole  route  are  encountered.  This  section, 
built  by  the  Government,  cost  about  ten  million  dol- 
lars, or  eighty  thousand  dollars  per  mile,  without  roll- 
ing stock  or  stations. 

Another  serious  and  unexpected  difficulty  with 
which  the  management  of  the  new  transcontinental 
line  had  to  deal,  after  the  road  was  opened,  was  the 
"  creeping  track."  West  of  Winnipeg,  where  the  road- 
bed is  highly  elastic,  the  track  creeps  with  the  move- 
ment of  a  passing  train.  At  the  bottom  of  a  boggy 
sag,  called  a  "  muskeg "  by  the  Indians,  there  is  a 
small  bridge,  and  from  this  bridge  the  track  used  to 
creep  east  and  west.  The  difficulty  was  finally  over- 
come by  putting  in  twelve-foot  ties  and  forty-inch 
angle  bars,  with  a  slot  in  alternate  sides  of  the  rails  at 
every  tie  to  hold  them  in  position.  The  following  de- 
scription of  the  action  of  the  "  creeping  track "  is 
given  by  Mr.  Whyte,  superintendent  of  the  division: 

"  The  track  would  yield  about  six  inches  to  every 
passing  train.     With  a  heavy   consolidation  engine, 


208  'THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

hauling  thirty-five  cars,  this  track  crept  twenty-six 
inches  in  the  direction  in  which  the  train  was  moving. 
The  rails  creep  for  about  three  quarters  of  a  mile  east 
and  about  half  a  mile  west  of  a  small  bridge  at  the 
foot  of  a  grade  in  both  directions.  They  creep  with 
every  train,  and  in  warm  weather  will  often  run  twelve 
inches  under  an  ordinary  train.  Track  bolts  break 
almost  daily,  and  repairs  are  to  the  extent  of  a  box 
of  bolts  per  month.  Cinder  ballast  keeps  the  track 
in  line  and  surface  fairly  well,  but  does  not  in  the 
least  prevent  the  creeping  of  the  rails.  Lining  and 
surfacing  are  necessary  at  least  once  a  week.  On  ac- 
count of  the  flanges  on  the  angle  plates,  spikes  must 
be  left  out  of  a  tie  on  each  side  of  these  plates,  other- 
wise the  creeping  rails  would  carry  the  ties  with  them 
and  throw  the  track  out  of  gauge.  Three  trains  run- 
ning in  the  same  direction  are  often  sufficient  to  open 
all  joints  on  one  side  and  close  them  on  the  other  side 
of  the  bridge  between.  The  whole  muskeg,  when  a 
train  is  passing,  shows  a  series  of  short  waves  five  to 
six  inches  deep,  rising  and  falling  with  the  passing 
load,  and  the  rails  can  be  seen  moving  with  the  mov- 
ing train." 

Before  the  Leslies  had  perfected  their  rotary  snow 
excavator,  the  danger  of  having  trains  snow-bound 
was  a  source  of  constant  dread  and  uneasiness  to  the 
railroad  officials.  Marshall  Pass,  on  the  Eio  Grande, 
was  once  blocked  for  ciglit  days  in  the  days  of  the 
pilot  plough.  The  passenger  trains  were  held  at  the 
foot  of  the  hill  on  either  side  of  the  range,  but  in  one 
or  two  cases  enginemen  who  got  separated  from  the 
main  force  actually  suffered  for  want  of  food.    An  eu- 


THE  CANADIAN  PACIFIC.  209 

gineer  and  fireman  undertook  to  fall  down  the  two- 
himdred-and-seventeen-foot  grade,  but  got  stuck  four 
miles  from  the  summit.  Here  they  remained  until 
they  began  to  eat  the  tallow  out  of  the  tallow  pot,  for 
the  storm  that  was  raging  there,  eight  or  ten  thousand 
feet  above  the  sea,  made  it  impossible  for  either  to 
venture  out.  On  the  eighth  day  a  successful  attempt 
was  made  to  open  the  road,  and  the  starved  crew  was 
rescued. 

As  late  as  1890,  in  the  latter  part  of  May,  the 
Union  Pacific  Company  had  a  snow  contest  on  Alpine 
Pass  to  settle  for  all  time  the  question  as  to  the  best 
snow  machine  to  be  used  on  the  mountains  of  its  sys- 
tem. The  contest,  which  lasted  three  days  and  cost 
the  company  something  over  ten  thousand  dollars, 
was  an  exciting  one,  but  it  was  worth  the  money,  and 
settled  the  snowplough  question  not  only  for  the  Union 
Pacific,  but  for  nearly  the  whole  snow  country.* 

In  order  to  reduce  the  danger  of  snow  blockades 
to  a  minimum,  and  to  enable  the  passenger  department 
to  give  assurance  to  prospective  passengers  of  the  ab- 
solute safety  of  the  journey,  Mr.  Van  Horn,  then  the 
general  manager  of  the  company,  caused  a  number  of 
"  caches  "  to  be  made  in  the  mountains,  just  as  the 
voyageurs  of  the  Hudson  Bay  Company,  explorers  and 
hunters,  had  done  in  the  earlier  days.  For  hundreds  of 
miles  no  supplies  could  be  procured  except  by  trains, 
and,  in  view  of  detentions,  each  through  train  from 
Montreal,  in  addition  to  the  dining-car  supplies,  car- 

*  A  full  account  of  this  contest,  under  the  title  of  A  Novel 
Battle,  will  be  found  in  Tales  of  an  Engineer. 


210  THE  STORY  OP  THE  RAILROAD. 

ried  in  the  baggage  car  an  emergency  box  of  pro- 
visions, to  be  used  exclusively  for  passengers,  and  only 
in  case  of  necessity.  Besides  this,  at  nine  points  on 
the  Selkirks  and  Eagle  Pass,  where  detention  by  snow- 
slides  was  possible,  provision  magazines  were  estab- 
lished in  safe  positions,  at  intervals  of  about  ten  or 
twelve  miles,  so  that  no  train  could  be  caught  more 
than  six  miles  from  food.  These  provisions  were  taken 
away  in  the  spring  and  replaced  by  fresh  supplies  in 
the  autumn.  Coal  and  oil  supplies  for  the  passenger 
cars  were  similarly  "  cached,"  and  emergency  fuel  for 
the  locomotives,  bridge  and  track  material  held  loaded 
on  cars,  to  shorten  the  detention  of  trains. 

The  Canadian  Northwest,  however,  first  opened 
and  prepared  for  settlement  by  the  building  of  the 
Canadian  Pacific  Eailway,  is  not  all  avalanche,  "  flur- 
ry," and  glacier.  The  valley  of  the  Eed  Eiver  of  the 
North  is  one  of  the  finest  wheat  fields  in  the  world. 
The  continental  line  runs  through  nearly  four  hundred 
miles  of  wheat  land  that  is  better  than  all  the  gold 
lands  of  the  far  Northwest.  One  hears  and  reads  a 
great  deal  about  the  fifty  millions  of  gold  that  the 
Klondike  promises  to  give  up  this  year,  but  nothing 
is  said  of  the  one  hundred  million  bushels  of  wheat 
that  are  now  being  wimpled  by  the  warm  "  chinook  " 
and  bathed  in  the  sun  of  an  eightcen-hour  day.* 

•  "  Another  climatic  feature  peculiar  to  all  high  latitudes, 
which  acfoiints  for  the  ripening  of  grain  and  vegotablos  in  the 
Peace  River  region  and  north  of  the  sixtieth  parallel,  is  the 
greater  length  of  the  day  and  the  greater  amount  of  sunshine, 
the  8un  rising  on  .Tune  21st  at  3.12  a.  m.,  and  setting  at  8.50  r.  m. 
•—Dr.  Dawson,  Canadian  Geological  /Survey. 


W     2 


THE  CANADIAN  PACIFIC.  211 

The  explorations  and  surveys  for  the  railroad  had 
made  known  the  character  of  the  country  it  was  to 
traverse.  In  the  wilderness  east,  north,  and  west  of 
Lake  Superior  forests  of  pine  and  other  timber  and 
mineral  deposits  of  incalculable  value  were  found,  and 
millions  of  acres  of  agricultural  land  as  well.  The 
vast  prairie  district  between  Winnipeg  and  the  Eocky 
Mountains  proved  to  be  wonderfully  rich  in  agricul- 
tural resources.  Toward  the  mountains  great  coal 
fields  were  discovered,  and  British  Columbia  beyond 
was  known  to  contain  almost  every  element  of  traffic 
and  wealth. 

Finally,  the  forces  working  toward  each  other  met 
at  Craigellachie,  in  Eagle  Pass,  in  the  Gold  or  Colum- 
bia Eange  of  mountains,  and  there,  on  a  wet  morning, 
the  7th  of  November,  1885,  the  last  rail  was  laid  in 
the  main  line  of  the  Canadian  Pacific  Eailway. 

The  close  of  1885  found  the  company,  not  yet  five 
years  old,  in  possession  of  no  less  than  four  thousand 
three  hundred  and  fifteen  miles  of  railroad,  including 
the  longest  continuous  line  in  the  world,  extending  from 
Quebec  and  Montreal  all  the  way  across  the  continent  to 
the  Pacific  Ocean,  a  distance  of  over  three  thousand 
miles,  and  by  the  midsummer  of  1886  all  this  vast  sys- 
tem was  fully  equipped  and  fairly  working  throughout. 
Villages  and  towns,  and  even  cities,  followed  close 
upon  the  heels  of  the  line  builders;  the  forests  were 
cleared  away,  and  the  soil  of  the  prairies  was  turned 
over,  mines  were  opened,  and  even  before  the  last  rail 
was  in  place  the  completed  sections  were  carrying  a 
large  and  profitable  traffic.  The  following  years  were 
marked  by  an  enormous  development  of  this  traffic, 


212  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

by  the  addition  of  many  lines  of  railroad  to  the 
company's  system,  and  by  the  establishment  of  the 
magnificent  steamship  service  to  Japan  and  China. 

But  the  future  of  Canada  and  of  the  Canadian  Pa- 
cific depends  not  upon  the  traffic  of  the  Orient  nor  on 
the  gold  of  the  Klondike,  but  upon  the  settlement  and 
development  of  the  great  Northwest;  and  by-and-bye 
men  will  not  say  that  Canada  made  the  railroad,  but 
that  the  railroad  made  Canada. 


CHAPTEE   XVIII. 

HOAD    MAKING    IN    MEXICO. 

Jtjst  as  great  wars  have  developed  great  generals, 
so  has  the  railroad  brought  out  some  remarkable  men. 
There  are  great  road  makers  who  make  roads  all  their 
lives  and  die  in  the  graders'  camp.  Others,  more  versa- 
tile, build  roads  and  then  run  them,  and  in  time  be- 
come great  managers,  for  it  is  well  for  the  president 
to  know  what  is  between  the  ties.  The  home  of  the 
road  maker  is  always  at  the  front.  The  whistle  of  the 
work  engine  echoes  in  a  wilderness. 

Twenty-five  or  thirty  years  ago  a  boy  began  push- 
ing a  truck,  for  fifty  cents  a  day,  on  the  Vermont  Cen- 
tral Eailroad.  He  kept  the  truck  oiled  and  was  pro- 
moted, but  slowly,  and  he  went  to  California  via  Pana- 
ma. He  worked  all  the  way  from  California  to  Ala- 
bama, and  in  1871  was  station  master  at  Mobile.  Ten 
years  later  he  was  general  superintendent,  resigned, 
and  went  to  Mexico  to  build  the  line  of  the  Santa  Fe 
system  known  as  the  Sonora  Eailway,  and  there  is 
where  this  story  should  begin. 

The  Mexican  Government,  for  reasons  which  were 
not  published,  refused  to  allow  the  road  to  be  built 
from  El  Paso  to  tide  water,  but  compelled  the  con- 
tractors to  begin  at  Guaymas,  halfway  up  the  Gulf 

213 


214  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

of  California,  and  build  back.  Everything  had  to  be 
brought  around  Cape  Horn  by  sailing  vessels.  The 
ships  carrying  material  to  the  track  makers  made  one 
round  trip  per  year.  In  order  to  be  sure  of  a  small 
working  force,  the  builder  of  this  sea-fed  railroad 
took  two  hundred  negroes  overland,  and  employed  at 
once  all  the  Indians  and  Mexicans  who  could  be 
persuaded  to  work.  Not  all  the  negroes  had  char- 
acters. Many  of  them  had  two  names  and  a  razor, 
and  when  they  distributed  themselves  among  the  na- 
tives on  the  night  that  followed  pay  day  thought- 
ful men  slept  in  storm  cellars.  Idle  Mexicans,  jealous 
of  the  Americans,  created  or  incited  riot  at  every 
opportunity.  The  Indians  were  Indians,  and,  as 
a  whole,  the  graders  of  the  Sonora  would  rank  with 
the  hardest  working  force  ever  collected  on  the  con- 
tinent. 

The  man  who  undertook  the  construction  of  the 
Sonora  Railway  in  the  face  of  the  most  serious  com- 
plications was  Daniel  Bullard  Eobinson,  whose  first 
promotion  came  as  a  result  of  his  care  for  a  push- 
truck  down  in  Vermont.  Mr.  Robinson  had  with  him 
one  of  the  most  heroic  as  well  as  most  popular  en- 
gineers ever  employed  in  the  West.  His  name  was 
Morley.  He  was  the  hero  of  that  famous  morning 
ride  from  Pueblo  to  Canon  City,  in  the  fight  for  the 
Royal  Gorge.  His  name  is  on  the  sign-board  above 
the  station  halfway  up  the  eastern  slope  to  Raton  Pass. 
All  the  men  who  fought  under,  over,  or  side  by  side 
with  Morley  in  the  great  battle  that  ended  with  the 
opening  of  the  West  speak  well  of  him.  Ex-President 
Strong,  of  the  Santa  Fe,  speaks  of  him  as  an  affec- 


ROAD  MAKING  IN  MEXICO.  215 

tionate  father  speaks  of  a  dutiful  son  who  has  lately 
passed  away. 

Not  long  ago  the  writer  asked  Mr.  Eohinson  about 
the  famous  pathfinder.  His  face  showed  instantly  the 
interest  he  felt  in  the  subject.  "  Morley's  head  was 
on  my  shoulder  when  he  was  shot,"  said  the  president 
of  the  'Frisco  line,  watching  the  "  desert "  that  he  had 
helped  to  conquer  slip  away  from  his  private  car. 

"  We  were  travelling  overland  in  a  wagon,"  he 
went  on.  "  We  used  to  make  hundreds  of  miles  in  that 
way,  and,  of  course,  in  that  wild  country,  where  a 
great  majority  of  the  inhabitants  were  opposed  to  new 
things,  we  had  to  look  out  for  ourselves.  There  were 
Indians  always  to  be  guarded  against,  lawless  Mexi- 
cans and  bandits  of  almost  every  shade  and  colour,  so 
for  protection  we  had  our  rifles  within  reach  at  all 
times.  We  had  been  travelling  and  working  almost 
constantly  day  and  night,  and  were  completely  worn 
out.  I  had  leaned  my  head  on  Morley's  shoulder  and 
taken  a  nap.  When  I  awoke  I  complained  about  a 
rifle  that  rested  between  the  two  men  on  the  front 
seat.  The  butt  of  the  gun  was  against  the  dashboard, 
the  muzzle  pointed  at  my  head.  Well,  nobody  paid 
any  attention  to  my  protest.  Morley  said  that  he  would 
go  to  bed,  and,  leaning  his  head  upon  my  shoulder, 
w^as  soon  sound  asleep.  One  of  the  men  moved,  the 
rifle  was  discharged,  and  the  bullet  went  crashing 
through  the  sleeper's  head." 

Here  Mr.  Eohinson  fished  a  little  brass  cylinder 
from  his  vest  pocket.  "  This,"  he  said,  "  is  the  shell 
that  held  the  cartridge  that  killed  Morley  sixteen  years 
ago." 


216  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

The  wound  was  not  instantly  fatal.  Morley  got 
out  of  the  wagon  and  walked  round  in  front  of  the 
team;  then  gazing  about  like  a  man  looking  for  a 
place  to  lie  down,  he  said,  addressing  his  companions, 
"  Boys,  this  is  hard,"  and  that  was  the  end  of  a  man 
who  wanted  only  the  opportunity  to  become  one  of 
the  nation's  heroes.  It  was  with  a  heavy  heart  that 
his  chief  and  friend  pushed  the  great  work  in  Mexico 
to  completion  after  Morley's  death. 

He  had  begun  this  work  in  1881,  and  in  1883  went 
to  Paso  del  Norte  to  take  charge  of  the  construction 
of  the  Mexican  Central  from  that  point  to  Fresnillo, 
Mexico,  a  stretch  of  seven  hundred  and  fifty  miles. 
It  was  here  that  Mr.  Eobinson  beat  the  world's  record 
in  road  making.  From  one  end,  with  only  the  stakes 
set  to  begin  with,  he  built  five  hundred  and  twenty-five 
miles  of  track  here  in  three  hundred  and  sixty-five 
days,  which,  with  possibly  one  exception,  has  never 
been  equalled  in  any  part  of  America,  and  certainly 
nowhere  except  in  America  would  men  be  in  such  a 
hurry.*  Before  the  entire  line  was  completed,  how- 
ever, this  Napoleon  of  the  construction  camp  was 
called  to  the  capital  to  take  charge  of  the  construc- 
tion of  the  line  that  was  being  built  from  that  end. 
He  was  to  build  north  four  hundred  and  fifty  miles  to 
meet  the  builders  (the  work  he  had  just  left)  coming 
south  seven  hundred  and  fifty  miles  from  El  Paso. 
Here,  as  in  Sonora,  the  constructor  was  at  a  great  dis- 
advantage.   Everything  had  to  be  brought  in  via  Vera 

*  The  Manitoba  system  was  extended  in  1887  through  Dakota 
and  Montana,  545  miles,  between  April  2  and  October  19. — 
TnoMAS  C.  Clarke,  The  American  liaihvay. 


ROAD  MAKING  IN  MEXICO.  217 

Cruz,  just  as  the  material  for  the  Souora  line  was 
brought  from  New  York  and  Europe  to  Guaymas,  in 
the  Gulf  of  California.  This  included  everything  used 
in  the  construction  of  the  road,  as  well  as  the  equip- 
ment needed  for  the  work.  Cars  and  locomotives  had 
to  be  brought  in  sections,  shipped  to  the  City  of  Mexico 
over  the  Mexican  Railway,  and  then  set  up. 

Mr.  Eobinson  found  the  greatest  difficulty  in  teacli- 
ing  the  natives  how  to  use  the  plough  and  scraper,  the 
standard  tools  of  the  American  road  makers.  They 
could  make  a  hot  taniale  in  an  ice  wagon,  catch  a  run- 
ning horse  by  the  left  hind  foot  without  ever  missing 
it,  but  they  could  not  fill  a  scraper  or  hold  a  plough. 
They  could  not  so  much  as  pilot  a  mule  to  water  along 
a  beaten  trail. 

A  man  can  build  a  railroad  with  red  ants  if  he  has 
enough  of  them  and  can  keep  them  at  it.  Nobody 
knew  this  better  than  Robinson,  and  when  his  hopes 
and  patience  failed  he  piled  the  ploughs  and  scrapers 
in  a  heap,  turned  the  mules  out  on  the  cacti,  and  set 
his  ants  to  work.  They  were  of  all  colours — red,  black, 
and  a  few  white,  but  mostly  yellow.  The  natives  were 
all  right.  Round  and  round,  up  and  down,  to  and  fro 
they  went,  slowly,  to  be  sure,  but  surely,  and  the  grade 
began  to  grow.  Each  man  carried  a  basket  or  bucket, 
filled  it,  climbed  the  dump,  and  emptied  it  at  the  point 
indicated  by  the  dumping  boss.  The  Mexicans  came 
in  great  numbers  now  to  seek  work,  and  they  were 
all  employed.  As  the  days  went  by  the  line  grew 
longer,  and  in  a  little  while  new  lines  had  to  be  formed 
in  new  places.  At  the  end  of  a  week  hundreds  of 
grademakers  were  piling  up  the  grade.    In  less  than  a 


218  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

month  the  line  was  literally  alive  with  these  human 
ants.  Eed  ants,  fleece-clad,  from  the  mountains,  naked 
ants  from  the  Terre  Coliente,  and  black  ants  from 
Sonora,  where  the  road  was  finished,  found  the  work 
and  swelled  the  army. 

It  was  Robinson's  way  never  to  be  beaten.  He  had 
undertaken  to  build  four  hundred  and  fifty  miles 
of  road,  and  to  meet  the  south-bound  builders  at 
that  distance  from  the  capital,  and  he  meant  to 
do  it. 

"How  many  men  have  we  now?"  he  asked  one 
day,  looking  at  the  squirming  mass  of  humanity  that 
covered  the  right  of  way  for  a  mile  or  more. 

"  Fourteen  thousand,"  said  the  boss  of  the  bosses. 

Robinson  gave  a  low  whistle,  but  kept  on  hiring 
men. 

The  average  wages  paid  to  this  bucket  brigade  was 
thirty-one  cents  a  day.  To  be  sure,  this  half-civilized 
band  would  not  take  cheques;  they  had  to  have  their 
pay  every  Saturday  night  in  the  coin  of  the  country, 
which  was  silver.  The  biggest  piece  of  silver  in  use 
then  was  one  dollar. 

"  We  were  obliged  to  pay  this  army  every  Saturday 
night,"  said  Mr.  Robinson,  "  and  it  took  from  five  to 
ten  large  wagons  to  carry  the  silver  from  the  north  of 
the  work  to  the  various  working  camps.  Of  course, 
these  pay- wagons  were  closely  guarded  by  Americans, 
and  it  seems  wonderful  to  relate  now  that  not  a  single 
dollar  was  lost  or  stolen  during  our  entire  period  of 
construction.  I  do  not  think  that  ihis  would  have 
been  the  case  had  the  same  conditions  existed  in  the 
United  States." 


ROAD  MAKING   IN  MEXICO.  219 

This  was  probably  owing  as  much  to  lack  of  enter- 
prise as  to  the  "  honesty  "  of  the  outlaws  of  that  repub- 
lic. The  transportation  facilities  were  not  sufficient  to 
tempt  an  enterprising  train  robber. 

Notwithstanding  all  the  disadvantages  under  which 
the  south  end  was  constructed,  Robinson's  army  of  ants 
reached  the  pass  of  the  north  in  time  to  connect  with 
the  rails  that  were  reaching  from  Texas  toward  the 
capital  of  Mexico. 

Upon  the  completion  of  this  second  line  built  by 
him  in  Mexico,  the  general  management  of  the  Atlan- 
tic and  Pacific  Railroad  was  offered  to  Mr.  Robin- 
son, and  accepted  by  him.  A  year  later  he  was  again 
at  the  old  work,  but  this  time  with  burros  and  blasters 
in  the  Rocky  Mountains. 

Mr.  J.  J.  Hagerman,  of  Colorado  Springs,  a  man 
of  great  business  capacity,  commanding  an  unlimited 
amount  of  capital,  had  persuaded  English  investors 
to  join  him  in  building  the  Colorado  Midland  Railway 
— a  foolish  piece  of  road  making,  the  casual  observer 
would  say,  for  it  began  at  a  summer  resort  and  ended 
at  a  flag  station. 

This  was  the  first  standard  gauge  line  to  cross  the 
Rockies  amid  the  eternal  snows,  and  naturally  the  re- 
sourceful Robinson  was  asked  to  take  the  job,  and  he 
accepted  it.  There  was  some  wonderful  engineering 
here,  some  expensive  bridging  and  tunnelling.  Hager- 
man Tunnel,  which  pierces  the  range  near  timber  line, 
is  twenty-six  hundred  feet  long,  and  cost  the  tunnel 
company  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars.  The 
locomotives  used  were  of  necessity  heavy  to  climb  the 
heavy  grades.     The  new  grades  gave  way  at  times. 


220  THE  STORY  OP  THE  RAILROAD. 

making  funerals  frequent  among  the  enginemen  for 
the  first  year  or  so. 

The  Colorado  Midland  and  the  Denver  and  Rio 
Grande,  which  was  then  building  its  standard  line  via 
Leadville,  ran  together  at  Glenwood  Springs  on  the 
Pacific  slope.  The  caiion  was  narrow  there.  There 
was  scarcely  room  for  two,  so  the  two  roads  combined 
and  built  what  was  called  the  Eio  Grande  Junction 
Eailroad  from  that  point  to  Grand  Junction,  where 
both  connected  with  the  Eio  Grande  Western  for  Salt 
Lake  and  the  Pacific  coast. 

The  Denver  and  Eio  Grande  managed  to  control 
the  construction,  and,  as  it  was  then  handling  all  the 
transmountain  traffic  through  Colorado,  it  was  in  no 
hurry  to  complete  the  new  line  and  divide  business 
with  an  unwelcome  competitor.  The  work  dragged. 
The  Midland  people  protested,  but  there  seemed  to  be 
no  help  for  it.  Material  intended  for  the  joint  road, 
but  still  the  property  of  the  narrow  gauge,  would  dis- 
appear at  the  moment  when  the  contractors  were  ready 
to  put  it  in  place.  A  large  shipment  of  steel  for  the 
new  line  was  lost.  After  weeks  of  "  tracing,"  it  was 
finally  located  on  the  Denver  division  of  the  Eio 
Grande,  where  Superintendent  Deuel  had  spiked  it 
down  for  the  new  heavy  equipment  of  the  road,  which 
was  about  to  widen  out  to  a  standard  gauge. 

In  time,  however,  the  standard  gauge  was  com- 
pleted; the  Eio  Grande  Western  had  already  been 
widened,  and  the  Colorado  Midland  began  to  figure  in 
transcontinental  business,  exelianging  at  Colorado 
Springs  witli  tlie  Chicago,  Eock  Island  and  Pacific, 
and  at  Grand  Junction  with  the  Eio  Grande  Western. 


ROAD  MAKING  IN  MEXICO.  221 

A  few  years  later  the  new  road,  which  must  have  been 
built  to  sell,  was  absorbed  by  the  Santa  Fe.  In  the 
general  shaking  up  during  the  panicky  days  of  the 
'90s  the  Santa  Fe  lost  it,  and  just  now  Judge  Philips, 
of  the  United  States  Court  of  Appeals,  is  writing  an 
opinion  in  the  suit  brought  by  the  tunnel  company  to 
compel  the  Midland  Company  to  use  its  hole  in  the 
ground  at  Hagerman  Pass,  which  the  reorganization 
company  has  refused  to  do. 

After  completing  the  Colorado  Midland,  Mr.  Rob- 
inson became  president  of  the  San  Antonio  and  Arkan- 
sas Pass  Railroad.  Two  years  later  he  went  to  the 
Santa  Fe  as  vice-president  of  that  great  system.  In 
1896  he  became  president  of  the  St.  Louis  and  San 
Francisco  Railroad,  with  headquarters  at  St.  Louis, 
where  he  now  resides,  still  in  the  prime  of  life.  The 
doors  of  his  office  and  his  private  car  are  unlocked 
when  he  is  there.  He  is  extremely  modest  and  gener- 
ous, but  a  Napoleon  in  the  management  of  men.  Look- 
ing at  the  man  to-day,  one  would  never  guess  that  he 
had  spent  the  best  years  of  his  life  in  the  rough  and 
riot  of  the  uncurried  West. 

Pick  up  a  pebble  at  the  mouth  of  a  mountain  stream 
and  note  its  perfect  polish.  That  comes  from  count- 
less knocks  and  tumbles  in  the  turbulent  rill  that  has 
carried  it  along,  and  finally  landed  it  on  the  shore 
of  the  broad,  calm  river. 


CHAPTEE  XIX. 

THE    OPENING    OF    OKLAHOMA. 

If  all  the  other  booms  that  have  passed  over  the 
West  could  be  collected  and  concentrated  into  one  big 
boom,  it  would  look  like  the  opening  of  Oklahoma. 
Hundreds  of  gifted  writers  have  attempted  to  paint  a 
pen-picture  of  that  wild  time  and  have  failed,  and 
here  will  be  another  failure. 

Oklahoma  was  opened  for  settlement  on  April  23, 
1889.  This  territory  was  about  ninety  miles  long  from 
north  to  south  and  sixty  miles  wide  from  east  to  west, 
extending  from  the  north  bank  of  the  South  Canadian 
Eiver  northward  to  a  point  about  five  miles  south  of 
the  present  town  of  Perry.  The  history  of  the  many 
attempts  made  to  place  this  land  on  the  market  is  re- 
markable. For  a  number  of  years  Sidney  Clark,  Payne, 
and  others  had  laboured  to  secure  that  end.  During 
the  winter  of  1888-'89,  when  it  became  reasonably  cer- 
tain that  a  date  would  soon  be  set  for  the  opening, 
people  began  to  gather  from  all  over  the  United  States, 
and  when  the  date  was  named,  about  April  1st,  they 
came  with  a  rush.  All  winter  long  the  United  States 
Government  kept  a  guard  and  tried  to  keep  out  in- 
truders, commonly  called  "  sooners,"  but  nearly  all  of 
tlie  professional  land  grabbers  made  frequent  trips 
and  ^\)\vi\  out  the  land  pretty  thoroughly  before  the 
233 


THE  OPENING  OF  OKLAHOMA.  223 

opening,  so  that  they  would  know  where  to  go 
for  the  best  lands.  A  few  days  before  the  opening 
troops  scoured  the  country  and  beat  every  bush  to 
make  a  clean  sweep,  but,  notwithstanding  this,  many 
men  hid  in  the  hollows  and  secure  places,  ready  to 
grab  the  coveted  claim  at  noon  on  the  22d.  Very  few 
attempts  were  made  to  enter  from  east  or  west.  The 
Government  refused  to  allow  the  people  to  remain  on 
the  Cherokee  Strip,  a  body  of  land  sixty-five  miles 
wide,  extending  all  along  the  Kansas  line,  so  those 
from  the  north  gathered  mainly  at  Arkansas  City,  a 
few  thousand  at  Hunnewell  and  Caldwell,  and  about 
five  thousand  at  Purcell,  on  the  south. 

Every  good  saddle  horse  commanded  a  high  price. 
Eacing  stock  sold  for  two  or  three  hundred  dollars  a 
head.  Most  of  the  runs  on  horseback  and  by  teams 
were  made  from  the  south,  as  no  horse  or  team  could 
traverse  the  Cherokee  Strip  as  quickly  as  the  train. 
Everybody  entered  from  the  north  via  the  Santa  Fe 
and  Rock  Island  Railroads,  except,  of  course,  the 
"  sooners." 

'No  conception  could  be  formed  of  the  number  of 
people  that  were  to  be  handled  by  train.  Assistant- 
General-Superintendent  Turner,  of  the  Santa  Fe,  who 
was  in  charge  of  that  territory,  estimated  that  the  com- 
pany would  handle  ten  thousand  people  out  of  Arkan- 
sas City  and  two  thousand  out  of  Purcell.  Thousands 
of  gaunt-faced  men  haunted  the  yards  day  and  night, 
trying  in  every  way  to  buy  information  or  bribe  the 
railroad  employees  into  smuggling  them  into  "  the  first 
train."  Unscrupulous  confidence  men,  dressed  like 
switchmen,  sold  "  tips  "  to  tenderfeet,  and  at  one  time 


224  THB  STORY  OP  THE  RAILROAD. 

the  detectives  employed  by  the  raih-oad  company  found 
a  "  Beauro  of  Information "  running  "  wide  open," 
where  inside  intelligence  was  sold  like  liquor,  pro- 
ducing equally  bad  results.  Men,  made  drunk  by  think- 
ing upon  a  single  subject,  forgot  that  all  men  were  not 
for  sale,  and  openly  offered  the  railroad  employees  fifty, 
a  hundred,  and  sometimes  a  thousand  dollars  for  the 
faintest  hint  as  to  which  train  would  be  the  first  to 
leave. 

Newspaper  correspondents  were  at  first  almost  as 
eager  for  information,  though  not  bidding  quite  so 
liberally.  To  quiet  the  reporters.  Superintendent 
Turner  gave  each  a  card  signed  with  his  initials,  and 
told  them  to  keep  still  until  they  were  ordered  to  get 
aboard.  If  their  car  appeared  to  be  at  the  end  of  the 
last  train,  they  were  to  say  nothing.  In  short,  they  were 
to  leave  everything  to  the  management,  and  they  did. 

Seeing  the  great  temptation  to  which  the  men  were 
being  exposed,  the  railroad  officials  called  the  con- 
ductors and  engineers  together  and  made  it  plain  to 
them  that  the  well-known  rules  of  running  men  "  first 
in,  first  out,"  would  be  off  for  that  day.  They  would 
all  make  a  trip,  and  as  nearly  as  possible  in  the  proper 
order,  but  no  man  could  say  with  any  degree  of  cer- 
tainty whether  he  would  be  first  out  or  last.  All  the 
trains  would  leave  and  all  would  arrive  within  the 
space  of  an  hour  or  a  little  more,  and  as  all  employees 
would  be  expected  to  remain  on  duty  at  the  end  of  the 
run,  it  could  make  no  great  difference  how  the  men 
went  out.  After  that  the  train  and  enginemen  could 
Ray  frankly  that  they  knew  nothing  about  the  make- 
up of  the  trains. 


THE  OPENING  OF  OKLAHOMA.  225 

It  is  to  the  credit  of  the  employees,  in  view  of  the 
great  temptation,  that  no  complaints  were  ever  made 
that  the  men  had  sold  information  that  was  false,  or 
that  they  had  sold  any  information  at  all. 

As  the  hour  drew  near  for  the  departure  of  the 
first  train  the  scene  was  indescribable.  Thousands 
upon  thousands  of  men  tipped  their  pale,  anxious  faces 
hack  and  peered  with  wild,  wide  eyes  at  the  driver  of 
an  engine  that  came  slowly  into  the  yard.  If  the  loco- 
motive touched  a  train  or  a  car,  instantly  a  thousand 
men  were  on  hoard,  with  hundreds  hanging  on  the 
steps  and  clinging  to  the  windows.  Hundreds  of  these 
"  homesick "  people  had  not  slept  for  nights  or 
stopped  to  eat  a  good  meal  for  days.  Presently  a  yard 
man  would  cut  the  engine  off,  and  as  it  moved  slowly 
away,  parting  the  multitude  with  its  pilot,  the  train 
would  give  up  its  human  freight. 

After  much  unnecessary  switching,  the  trains  were 
all  made  up  and  the  engines  began  to  be  coupled  on; 
but  when  a  train  appeared  to  be  overloaded,  the  loco- 
motive would  be  detached,  the  switchman  lectured  for 
having  coupled  the  wrong  engine,  and  then  the  mob 
would  fall  off.  When  the  officials  had  jockeyed  in  this 
way  until  no  man  could  form  any  opinion  as  to  which 
train  would  leave  first,  what  appeared  to  be  the  last 
train  pulled  out  with  not  less  than  a  thousand  men  and 
a  few  women  on  board. 

The  ten  trains  were  run  from  Arkansas  City, 
the  first  one  starting  at  nine  o'clock,  so  as  to  reach  the 
north  line  of  the  Oklahoma  country  at  twelve  o'clock 
noon.  It  was  followed  by  the  nine  other  trains  at  in- 
tervals of  ten  minutes.    Each  train  consisted  of  ten 


226  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

cars;  no  car  was  loaded  with  less  than  one  hundred 
people,  and  occasionally  contained  one  hundred  and 
fifteen.  Ten  thousand  and  six  hundred  tickets  were 
sold  from  Arkansas  City.  No  reduced  rates  were  made, 
as  the  Santa  Fe  controlled  the  business.  The  first  car 
on  the  first  train  was  a  baggage  car,  in  which  were 
placed  seventy-three  newspaper  men,  representing  the 
leading  papers  of  the  United  States  and  some  corre- 
spondents from  Europe.  There  was  intense  interest  all 
over  the  world,  because  this  was  the  largest  territory 
that  was  ever  thrown  open  for  settlement  in  an  hour. 

Probably  five  thousand  people,  seeing  the  great  mul- 
titude swarming  about  the  train  like  red  ants  at  the 
opening  of  a  hailstorm,  turned  away.  Hundreds  of 
people  there  would  unquestionably  have  passed  else- 
where as  lunatics.  As  often  as  a  train  started  to  pull 
out,  loaded  to  the  roof,  hundreds  of  men  would  leave 
a  reasonably  safe  place  on  another  train  to  race  after 
the  already  overloaded  one  that  was  leaving.  Often 
when  these  excitable  voyagers  returned  they  would  find 
the  place  they  had  quitted  occupied  by  another.  And 
so  the  mad  rush  went  on  until  the  last  train  had  pulled 
out,  leaving  thousands  of  people  behind. 

The  first  train  arrived  at  the  line  five  minutes 
before  noon,  waiting  for  the  notice  to  start,  which  was 
a  rifle  shot  fired  by  the  officer  in  command  of  the 
troops  guarding  tlie  gateway.  When  the  first  train 
had  run  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile,  a  young  woman 
crawled  through  a  coach  window  and  dropped  to  the 
ground,  but  immediately  jumped  to  ber  feet,  unhurt, 
ran  a  sliort  distance  to  clear  the  rigbt  of  way,  and 
drove  iier  stake,  making  the  first  claim.     After  that, 


THE  OPENING  OP  OKLAHOMA.  227 

on  every  hill,  where  the  speed  of  the  train  was  re- 
duced, people  dropped  off  as  a  good  claim  caught  their 
eye.  The  settlers  on  later  trains  did  the  same,  and 
many  a  conflict  arose,  in  which  the  weaker  party  was 
compelled  to  go  farther  away  from  the  railroad  to  look 
for  another  claim.  All  the  trains  ran  to  Guthrie, 
which  was  the  centre  of  the  excitement,  as  it  was  ex- 
pected that  the  Capitol  would  be  located  there.  The 
ten  trains  made  an  exciting  jam,  and  a  city  without 
a  board  or  a  nail  was  planned  in  an  hour.  People  lo- 
cated in  streets  without  any  regularity,  which  caused 
hundreds  of  lawsuits  and  fights  later  on. 

There  was  such  a  mob  at  Purcell  that  the  general 
superintendent  who  was  handling  the  movement  from 
that  end  concluded  that  it  would  not  be  safe  to  try 
to  run  two  trains.  So  he  coupled  all  the  coaches — 
twenty-two — in  one  train,  using  two  locomotives,  and 
brought  out  twenty-five  hundred  people,  the  train 
being  literally  covered,  men  even  hanging  on  truss- 
rods  and  outside  of  windows.  The  roofs  of  the  cars 
were  black  with  people.  Half  of  them  dropped  off  at 
Oklahoma  City.  There  were  only  about  eleven  thou- 
sand good  claims  of  one  hundred  and  sixty  acres  each 
in  the  territory.  It  is  presumed  that  every  one  of 
these  was  occupied  before  3  p.  m.,  and  that  thirty  thou- 
sand people  were  in  the  territory  before  night. 

The  signal  for  the  start  had  been  given  by  officers 
of  the  United  States  army  stationed  at  intervals  along 
the  border  of  the  promised  land.  Where  there  were 
cannon,  cannon  boomed  out  the  signal,  but  at  most 
places  a  shot  from  a  rifle  or  a  pistol  told  the  waiting 
multitude  that  it  was  time  to  go. 


228  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

A  party  of  railroad  and  Government  officials  had 
gone  in  on  a  special  train,  and  stood  in  the  silent 
waste  waiting  for  the  signal.  Out  over  the  rolling 
plain  they  looked  and  saw  no  living  thing.  It  seemed 
incredible  that  a  city  was  to  be  born  there  and  a  grave- 
yard started  within  the  next  one  hundred  and  twenty 
minutes.  "  Time!  "  said  one  of  the  officials,  snapping 
his  watch,  and  from  afar  over  the  billowed  plain  came 
the  low  boom  of  a  cannon,  and  instantly  a  man  sprang 
from  the  ground  not  a  thousand  yards  away.  "Wherever 
the  men  on  the  special  looked,  men  could  be  seen 
springing  from  the  very  earth.  Some  were  running 
this  way  and  some  that  way,  while  others,  kneeling 
in  the  native  grass,  drove  a  stake  to  mark  a  home. 

A  few  minutes  later  could  be  seen  the  smoke  of 
the  first  section  hurrying  to  the  end  of  the  track. 
When  the  train  stopped,  a  man,  running  with  all  his 
might,  saw  Lawyer  Quinton,  of  Topeka,  standing  alone 
near  the  special  train,  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets. 
Now  a  man  who  could  stand  perfectly  still  at  such  a 
moment  was  a  man  to  be  trusted;  so  the  newcomer, 
still  running,  threw  a  hand-satchel  at  the  lawyer, 
shouting,  "Keep  my  grip!"  and  fell  upon  a  corner 
lot.  Another  man,  seeing  all  this,  turned  and  dropped 
his  bundle  at  the  lawyer's  feet  just  as  a  fat  grip  hit 
that  gentleman  in  the  spine.  It  was  easy  to  follow 
the  drift  of  things  now.  Those  who  ran  could  read 
that  the  lawyer  was  a  check  stand,  a  baggage  room,  a 
public  warehouse  j)ro  lono  pvhlico.  In  less  than  three 
minutes  he  had  three  hundred  pieces  of  baggage,  all 
of  which  had  come  to  him  as  greatness  comes  to  some 
men.     As  the  last  train  stopped,  Mr.  Quinton  strug- 


THE  OPENING  OF  OKLAHOMA.  229 

gled  out  over  the  wall  of  grips  and  bundles  that  peo- 
ple had  left  in  his  care  as  they  hurried  on  to  a  new 
home.  Thousands  upon  thousands  of  pieces  of  bag- 
gage lay  there  unmarked,  and  some  of  it  was  never 
claimed,  for  the  owners  had  gone  to  help  people  the 
new  graveyard. 

The  next  problem  was  that  of  feeding  this  vast 
crowd,  which  took  with  it  nothing  but  a  sandwich,  and 
a  stake  to  mark  its  claims;  and  after  that  came  the 
problem  of  getting  it  material  for  shelter.  At  this 
time  the  road  had  a  stock  rush.  Pasture  cattle  were 
going  from  the  south  at  the  rate  of  ten  to  twenty  trains 
a  day.  The  stations  were  few  and  far  between,  with 
limited  side-track  capacity.  There  was  but  one  tele- 
graph wire,  and  freight  of  all  descriptions  lined  every 
side  track  from  Arkansas  City  to  the  Missouri  Eiver. 
The  first  day  they  moved  nothing  but  food;  the  next 
day  food  and  material  for  shelter.  After  that  it  was 
a  scramble.  Everybody  was  clamouring  for  his  freight, 
and  great  care  was  necessary  to  see  that  each  town  got 
its  share  of  food  to  keep  the  people  from  starving. 
Every  man  that  got  a  good  claim  telegraphed  his  peo- 
ple in  the  East.  Enough  messages  were  filed  to  keep 
ten  wires  busy.  Hundreds  of  people  left  that  night 
on  returning  trains,  either  disgusted  because  they  had 
no  section,  or  to  go  after  their  goods  and  family  if 
they  had  secured  a  claim. 

The  event  was  unique,  and  unparalleled  by  any 
previous  event  of  the  kind.  It  was  a  perfect  day.  The 
grass  was  green,  the  trees  in  leaf,  and  as  most  of  the 
people  were  from  the  North  and  East,  and  had  just 
left  cold  weather,  the  appearance  of  the  land  seemed 


230  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

to  them  to  Justify  the  name,  "  The  beautiful  Indian 
Territory." 

In  September,  1893,  the  Cherokee  Strip  was 
opened,  probably  with  nearly  as  big  a  crowd  and  a 
more  exciting  race  from  the  north  line,  because  it  was 
sixty  miles  long,  and  the  race  was  mostly  on  horseback 
and  by  team,  but  many  of  the  people  had  had  previous 
experience  at  the  Oklahoma  opening,  and  were  better 
prepared. 

It  is  impossible  to  describe  the  enthusiasm  and  the 
longing  expectation  that  seemed  to  govern  almost 
everybody.  Many  of  the  railroad  employees  were  half 
crazy  to  secure  claims,  and  in  one  instance  a  freight 
train  was  abandoned  on  the  main  track  between  sta- 
tions by  every  employee  except  the  fireman.  Other 
trains  were  abandoned  at  stations  by  half  their  crews. 
For  days  before  the  opening  men  sneaked  in  on  freight 
trains  or  paid  their  fares  through  the  territory  on 
passenger  trains,  and  dropped  off  while  the  trains 
stopped  at  water  tanks,  only  to  be  run  out  by  the  of- 
ficers or  Indian  scouts  employed  by  the  Government 
for  that  purpose.  In  most  cases  the  scouts  stripped 
them  of  their  arms  and  food,  compelling  them  to  leave 
at  once. 


In  the  mountains. 
(A  phase  of  the  engineer's  canon  work.) 


CHAPTEE   XX. 

THE     RAILROAD     ENGINEER:     A     FEW     ILLUSTRATIONS 
SHOWING    HOW   HE   HANDLES   THINGS. 

A  MAN  with  one  leg  over  a  fence  listening  for  a 
dog — that's  the  engineer.  He  wants  to  locate  the  line 
across  the  farmer's  field,  but  he  does  not  know  how 
the  farmer  and  the  dog  are  going  to  take  it.  When 
night  comes  on  the  pathfinder  will  sleep  where  his 
path  pinches  out,  and  he  will  not  he  welcome. 

When  he  has  passed  out  of  hearing  of  the  school 
bell  and  the  bulldog,  wild  animals  and  Indians  will 
block  his  trail,  for  there  is  no  civilization  beyond  the 
end  of  the  track.  All  the  way  from  the  Atlantic  to 
the  Pacific  he  has  been  forced  to  fight,  leaving  along 
his  new-made  trail  heaps  of  bleaching  bones  that  tell 
of  his  trials,  and  marvellous  feats  of  engineering  that 
speak  of  his  skill. 

We  have  seen  him  climbing  mountains  over  cog- 
ways  and  switchbacks.  Caught  in  a  rising  canon,  he 
doubles  his  trail,  "  loops "  his  line,  and  goes  ahead 
again.  When  a  narrow  pass  pinches  out,  he  climbs  to 
the  top  of  the  canon  wall,  lets  himself  down  by  means 
of  a  long  rope,  and  writes  on  a  rock  what  he  would 
put  on  a  stake  if  he  were  able  to  drive  one.  We  have 
seen  him  in  a  narrow  gorge  hanging  between   the 

231 


232  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

granite  walls  an  iron  frame  made  thousands  of  miles 
away. 

Bestriding  the  stream,  he  bridges  it  lengthwise,  and 
the  train  above  drowns  the  roar  of  the  river.  By 
turning  this  way  or  that,  he  saves  his  company  hun- 
dreds or  thousands  of  dollars.  All  the  money  put  into 
a  new  enterprise  is  at  his  mercy,  and  upon  his  judg- 
ment alone  the  success  of  a  great  undertaking  often 
depends.  If  a  tunnel  is  to  be  driven,  it  is  his  business 
to  find  the  softest  possible  place  in  the  mountain. 
He  is  expected  to  know  not  only  the  things  on  the 
earth,  but  to  give  pretty  good  guesses  as  to  the  things 
that  are  under  it.  If  he  orders  piling  to  be  driven 
in  a  stream,  the  road  builders  are  reasonably  sure  that 
the  waters  of  that  river  are  not  washing  the  bedrock. 
If  a  corporation  could  be  said  to  possess  a  conscience, 
it  would  be  the  chief  engineer.  He  holds  the  secrets 
of  the  company,  and  he  will  not  tell.  Without  appear- 
ing to  want  it,  he  obtains  all  the  information  obtain- 
able, and  goes  his  way.  He  asks  few  questions;  a 
great  deal  of  his  education  comes  to  him  by  absorp- 
tion. He  will  sit  up  all  night  and  listen  to  the  stories 
and  experiences  of  an  old,  illiterate  mountaineer,  but 
he  wants  no  advice  from  a  man  who  can  read.  It  is 
not  fine  theories  he  is  looking  for,  but  facts,  the  things 
men  learn  from  the  hills.  If  he  finds  it  hard  to  de- 
termine whether  a  certain  gulch  ought  to  be  bridged 
or  filled,  he  consults  a  cowboy,  a  scout,  or  a  squaw. 
He  is  modest,  retiring,  almost  to  the  point  of  being 
unsociable.  Pie  is  always  in  earnest.  Sometimes  he 
will  jest  and  joke,  and  if  he  hap))ens  to  be  Irish,  which 
is  not  often  the  case,  he  will  tell  a  story,  for  the  Irish 


THE  RAILROAD  ENGINEER.  233 

are  the  mirth-makers  of  the  rail.  There  is  an  Irish- 
man in  eight  out  of  ten  stories  you  hear  on  the  road.* 
The  railroad  engineer  is  never  finical.  He  rises 
fresh  and  hungry  from  his  bed  in  the  desert,  eats  his 
bacon  and  bread,  washes  it  down  with  black  coffee, 
and  makes  an  even  start  with  the  sun.  If  need  be, 
he  sleeps  in  a  wagon,  on  the  back  of  a  mule,  or  goes 
without  sleep.  If  an  important  pass  is  to  be  taken 
and  held  against  a  rival  company,  he  lays  down  his 
line  and  his  life,  and  you  can  not  take  the  one  without 
taking  the  other.    His  honour,  his  loyalty — his  life,  if 


*  Here  are  two  sample  stories  that  originated  with  the  Irish : 

A  big  boulder  dropped  into  the  Black  Caiion,  cut  the  107  from 
her  train,  and  put  her  and  her  driver,  Tom  Ryan,  to  the  bottom 
of  the  Gunnison  River.  Hickey,  the  roadmaster,  jumped  from 
the  train,  ran  down  to  the  water's  edge,  and  fished  Ryan  out. 
"Tom,"  cried  Hickey  hysterically,  "are  yez  hurtted?  Oh,  spake 
to  me,  Tommy,  spake  ! " 

"  Now,  phwy  the  divil  should  I  be  hurtted  ?  "  was  the  response 
from  the  dripping  driver. 

"  Thet's  so,"  said  the  roadmaster,  turning  away  in  disgust ; 
"  I  wonder  ye  got  wetted." 

One  sultry  midsummer  day,  when  the  hot  winds  were  sighing 
and  the  weeds  were  dying  on  the  Western  plains,  the  general 
superintendent  of  the  Santa  Fe  and  his  assistant  were  inspecting 
track  from  the  rear  of  a  private  car.  Between  the  two  general 
officers  sat  the  ruddy  roadmaster,  twirling  his  thumbs  and  sing- 
ing softly  to  himself,  "  Jerrie,  go  ile  th'  kayre."  The  very  sight 
of  the  man,  perfectly  healthy  and  happy,  was  irritating  to  the 
sneezing  officials,  who  were  watching  the  receding  rails  over  their 
handkerchiefs. 

"Say,  Moriarity,"  one  of  them  asked,"  did  you  ever  have  hay 
fever  I" 

"  No,"  said  Mory ;  "  me  rank  isn't  high  enough." 


234  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

need  be — is  pledged  to  his  employer.  He  takes  himself 
seriously,  never  underestimating  the  importance  of  his 
work. 

You  will  see  him  on  the  hanks  of  a  swollen  river 
that  threatens  the  right  of  way,  weaving  stout  willows 
into  a  great  carpet,  sinking  it  in  the  stream,  risking 
his  life,  but  saving  the  roadbed.  If  the  current  is  too 
swift  and  deep  to  do  this,  he  will  make  an  immense 
seine  of  heavy  woven  wire,  spread  it  along  the  margin 
of  the  river,  and  wait  patiently  for  the  water  to  under- 
mine the  net,  which  falls  over  the  crumbling  bank 
and  stops  the  wash. 

The  chief  engineer  knows  more  men  who  do  not 
work  for  the  company,  and  fewer  who  do,  than  any 
other  general  officer  on  the  road.  If  he  thinks  he  is 
right,  he  will  fight  or  quit,  but  he  hates  to  compro- 
mise. He  dislikes  to  move  a  stake  when  it  has  been 
driven  to  stay.  Once,  when  the  present  chief  en- 
gineer of  one  of  the  Western  roads  was  locating  a  line 
in  Missouri,  he  was  asked  to  change  the  stakes,  and 
refused.  The  proposed  road  at  this  point  lay  across 
a  meadow,  passed  up  by  an  old  orchard,  and  from  there 
gained  the  summit  of  a  long,  low  ridge.  The  stretch 
across  the  meadow  was  a  charming  bit  of  roadway,  giv- 
ing the  future  engine  driver  a  long  tangent  and  a  good 
run  for  the  hill.  When  the  stakes  had  all  been  set 
a  young,  unshaved  man  came  out  and  asked  that 
the  road  be  "  moved  over  a  piece."  The  engineer 
explained  that  it  would  be  impossible,  as  that  was 
the  best  point  to  pass  over  the  ridge.  The  man  in- 
sisted, and  finally  the  engineer  would  not  discuss  the 
matter,  explaining  that  the  company  would  indemnify 


THE  RAILROAD  ENGINEER.  235 

the  owners  of  the  property  when  the  proper  time 
came. 

The  man  went  back  into  the  house,  got  an  old 
squirrel  rifle,  came  out,  and  pulled  up  the  stakes.  The 
engineer  started  back  to  remonstrate,  but  at  that  mo- 
ment the  young  man's  mother  saw  what  was  about 
to  take  place,  and  hastened  to  meet  the  engineer. 

"  Can't  you  move  your  road  over  a  little  piece, 
mister?"  she  asked. 

"  I  don't  see  why  I  should.  If  you  feel  aggrieved, 
the  company  will  pay  you  what  is  right;  my  business 
is  to  locate  the  line,"  said  the  engineer,  glancing  an- 
grily up  the  slope  where  a  lean  young  farmer  sat 
nursing  his  rifle.  "  What  does  that  blackguard  mean 
by  sitting  there  on  a  stump  with  a  gun  ?  "  he  went  on. 

"  Why,  he  ain't  no  blackguard — that's  Nip.  Name's 
Nippolian;  we  call  him  Nip." 

"  Well,  I'll  nip  him  if  he  gets  funny." 

"  Oh,  no,  you  won't.  I  wa'n't  afraid  o'  that.  Wliat 
come  over  me,  as  I  see  you  startin'  'cross  the  meadow, 
was  maybe  you  had  a  mother  that  dotes  on  you  as  I  dote 
on  Nip,  an'  how  hard  it  would  be  for  her  to  have  you 
come  home  that  away,  an'  her  a-blamin'  us,  maybe." 

"  What  way  do  you  expect  me  to  go  home?  " 

"  Well,  if  you  persist  in  drivin'  them  stakes  there, 
you'll  go  home  dead." 

"  Well,"  said  the  engineer,  "  I'll  do  anything  in 
reason,  but  I  won't  be  bluffed  by  that  ruffian." 

"  I  keep  a-tellin'  you  he  ain't  no  ruffi'n — he's  jist 
Nip,  that's  all.  You  see,  we've  been  here  purty  nigh 
always — Nip  was  born  here — an'  when  the  grurillas 
come  an'  called  paw  out  an'  shot  him,  we  hurried  him 


236  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

jist  wliar  lie  fell,  an'  we've  always  kep'  it  as  a  sort  of 
reservation,  Nip  an'  me,  an'  he's  determined  you  sha'n't 
disturb  it,  that's  all." 

"  Then  you  don't  object  to  the  railroad?  " 

"Lord  o'  mercy,  no!  We  want  the  road,  but  we 
don't  want  you  to  disturb  paw's  grave,  that's  all." 

"  Come,"  said  the  engineer,  "  we'll  go  to  see  Nip." 

When  they  had  come  up  to  the  stump  the  big  en- 
gineer held  out  his  hand.  Nip  took  it,  but  kept  his 
eyes  on  the  stranger. 

"  Here  it  is,"  said  the  woman,  touching  a  low  stone 
lightly  with  her  foot. 

"  I  see,"  said  the  engineer;  "  we  can  miss  that 
easily  enough." 

He  moved  a  mile  of  road.  From  that  day  forward 
until  the  road  was  finished,  and  long  after,  the  widow's 
home  was  the  stopping  place  for  the  engineer. 

The  railroad  engineer  often  succeeds  where  failure 
seems  certain,  and  his  work  then  remains  as  a  monu- 
ment to  his  memory  after  he  has  passed  away;  but  of 
the  many  daring  schemes  that  fail  the  world  knows 
nothing,  or,  if  it  ever  hears,  it  soon  forgets.  One  of 
the  wildest,  most  romantic,  and  daring  enterprises  that 
have  ever  been  undertaken  in  the  West  was  the  at- 
tempt to  survey  and  build  a  railroad  through  the 
Grand  Canon  of  the  Colorado.  If  all  the  wild  gorges 
in  the  West  were  melted  down  and  recast,  they  would 
fall  short  of  making  another  Grand  Canon.  Its  awful 
grandeur  belittles  everything  else. 

The  Colorado  River  begins  with  the  confluence  of 
the  Green  and  Grand  in  southeastern  Utah,  so  deep 
down  in  the  twisted  hills  that  until  a  few  years  ago  no 


THE  RAILROAD  ENGINEER.  237 

man  knew  how  or  where  the  great  stream  originated. 
Explorers  have  attempted  to  ascend  it  from  the  Gulf 
since  1540,  but  soon  find  themselves  at  the  foot  of  a 
foaming  cataract,  and  turn  back.  Scores  of  men  have 
gone  in  at  the  top  of  the  canon,  but  were  never  heard 
of  afterward. 

In  1869  Major  Powell  undertook  the  exploration  of 
the  canon  with  nine  men  and  four  boats.  The  In- 
dians, looking  on,  said  that  he  would  not  come  back. 
No  Indian  had  ever  gone  through  Cataract  Canon  and 
lived  to  lie  about  it,  and  they  would  not  believe  a 
white  man  capable  of  succeeding  where  the  red  man 
had  failed. 

This  expedition  left  the  point  where  Green  Eiver 
station  now  stands,  and  started  down  the  Green  on 
May  24th.  Their  greatest  difficulty  in  that  small 
stream  was  to  find  sufficient  water  to  float  them,  but 
almost  immediately  after  passing  the  point  where  the 
Green  is  joined  by  the  Grand  the  river  became  reck- 
less. Swirls  and  eddies  and  dips  and  falls  were  encoun- 
tered hourly,  and  it  was  not  long  before  some  of  the 
crew  began  to  curse  the  day  that  tempted  them  into 
this  gorge  of  death.  They  would  have  deserted  gladly, 
some  of  them,  but  the  walls  were  already  steep  and 
high. 

At  the  first  opening  one  of  the  party  escaped  to  the 

mountain.    After  encountering  the  terrors  of  Cataract 

Canon,  three  more  half-crazed  men  walked  out  into 

the  desert.    They  never  came  back.    They  fell  into  the 

hands  of  some  Indians  who  were  full  of  the  story  of  an 

outrage  that  had  been  perpetrated  lately  by   white 

men,  and  who  accused  these  wanderers  of  the  crime. 
17 


238  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

The  three  explorers  protested  their  innocence,  and 
begged  to  be  brought  before  the  chief.  When  the  chief 
saw  the  men,  he  demanded  to  know  how  they  hap- 
pened to  be  in  the  country.  Now  the  white  men  told 
the  truth,  which  is  sometimes  stranger  than  fiction. 
They  said  that  they  had  come  all  the  way  from  the 
Green  water  in  a  boat. 

"You  lie!"  cried  the  chief;  "no  man  can  do 
that,"  and  the  three  explorers  were  massacred. 

On  August  30th  Major  Powell,  minus  two  boats 
and  four  men,  landed  at  the  mouth  of  the  Virgin 
Eiver,  nearly  a  thousand  miles  from  the  starting  point. 
His  description  of  his  journey  down  the  Colorado  is  an 
interesting  bit  of  graphic  history,  and  we  who  have 
had  glimpses  of  the  Colorado  are  able  to  imagine  that 
he  came  out  with  a  grand  collection  of  stirring  sensa- 
tions and  nerve-testing  thrills.  And  this  is  the  canon 
through  which  a  party  of  Denver  men  proposed  to  sur- 
vey and  build  a  railroad.  If  the  road  is  ever  built,  the 
tourists  can  have  here,  in  a  thousand  miles  of  travel, 
more  wild,  grand,  and  awful  scenery  than  can  now  be 
had  from  a  car  window  in  a  journey  round  the  world. 

Aside  from  its  scenic  value,  the  proposed  road  was 
to  connect  by  a  short  line  the  Eocky  Mountain  region 
with  the  orange  groves  of  the  tropics.  It  was  to  pass 
through  a  canon  where  the  wild  mingles  with  the 
weird,  and  where  the  grand  touches  the  awful.  It  was 
to  be  built  along  the  foot  of  rocky  walls  whose  sum- 
mits were  kissed  by  the  clouds.  It  was  to  wind  and 
twist  with  a  great  river  that  is  a  raging,  turbulent 
tiling  of  swift  rapids,  foaming  cataracts,  treacherous 
eddies,  and  fatal  falls. 


THE  RAILROAD  ENGINEEa  239 

The  first  attempt  to  survey  the  canon  made  by 
these  adventurous  men  was  under  the  patronage  of 
Frank  Mason  Brown,  John  C.  Montgomery,  and  others. 
The  party  left  Denver  on  May  23,  1889,  headed  by 
Mr.  Brown,  who  had  been  chosen  president  of  the 
company.  The  chief  engineer  who  signed  for  this 
dangerous  task  was  Eobert  B.  Stanton.  Other  mem- 
bers of  the  original  party  were  Messrs.  Heslop,  Hans- 
borough,  Richards,  and  MacDonell,  with  two  negro 
servants. 

A  few  letters  were  received  by  the  families  and 
friends  of  the  various  members  of  the  party,  and  finally 
a  "  good-bye  "  from  Green  River.  Then  they  were  off 
on  their  perilous  trip.  The  next  news  received  from 
the  expedition  was  most  hopeful,  and  stated  that  they 
had  passed  successfully  about  three  hundred  miles  of 
the  most  dangerous  part  of  the  river,  "  which  is  one 
series  of  cataracts  and  rapids,  walled  on  either  side  by 
caiion  walls  at  times  rising  to  six  thousand  and  seven 
thousand  feet  in  height.  The  descent  is  so  great  that 
at  places  for  miles  in  length  the  water  is  lashed  and 
churned  to  a  foam  of  creamy  whiteness.  Notwith- 
standing this,  the  journey  of  three  hundred  miles  was 
made  in  safety,  and  with  only  the  loss  of  two  boats." 

From  this  point  the  party  was  reduced  to  eight 
men.  With  a  fresh  supply  of  provisions,  they  pro- 
ceeded on  the  dangerous  journey.  Their  conveyances 
consisted  of  three  boats,  each  fifteen  inches  deep  and 
thirty-two  inches  wide.  After  leaving  the  Grand  River 
the  party  passed  through  what  is  known  as  Cataract 
Canon,  in  which  there  are  seventy-eight  rapids  within 
a  space  of  a  few  miles.     These  were  passed  in  safety. 


240  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

For  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  farther  down  the 
stream  was  more  navigable  and  easily  passed,  but  after 
they  had  left  Lee's  Ferry  some  distance  behind  a  ter- 
rible cataract  was  found,  which  is  spoken  of  by  Major 
Powell,  in  his  report  of  his  journey  in  1869,  as  being 
sixteen  feet  high,  and  one  of  the  most  terrible  whirl- 
pools he  ever  saw. 

After  the  cataract  this  message  from  Mr.  Stanton 
reached  the  families  and  friends  of  the  adventurous 
explorers.  It  was  dated  at  Kanab,  Utah,  July  22, 
1889: 

"  President  Frank  M.  Brown  was  drowned  in  the 
Colorado  Eiver,  in  Marble  Canon,  July  10th,  by  his 
boat  being  capsized  while  running  a  rapid.  He  was 
thrown  into  a  whirlpool  and  unable  to  get  out  of  it, 
while  the  other  men  in  the  boat  were  thrown  into  the 
current  and  carried  down  about  six  hundred  feet  and 
landed.  All  the  other  boats  of  the  expedition  went 
through  the  rapids  safely,  and  my  boat  reached  the 
point  where  Mr.  Brown  was  thrown  half  a  minute 
after  the  accident  happened,  and  less  than  five  seconds 
after  he  sank  for  the  last  time.  Five  days  after,  while 
working  our  way  down,  another  boat  was  driven  against 
the  cliff,  and  two  boatmen,  Peter  M.  Hansborough  and 
Henry  C.  Ricliards,  were  both  drowned  before  assist- 
ance could  reach  them.  It  was  impossible  to  recover 
any  of  the  bodies." 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

AT   THE    FRONT. 

In  order  to  develop  more  definitely  the  various 
phases  of  the  engineer's  work  in  the  field  and  of  con- 
struction camp  life,  I  have  obtained  permission  to  re- 
print the  following  magazine  article  published  some 
ten  years  since:  * 

"It  was  merely  as  an  observer  and  writer  that  I  first 
studied  life  at  the  head  of  the  rails  in  the  Black  Canon 
of  the  Gunnison  in  1882.  At  that  time  the  Denver 
and  Eio  Grande  was  building  an  independent  route 
westward  to  Salt  Lake  City.  The  train,  drawn  by  two 
heavy  engines,  wound  slowly  over  the  Marshall  Pass, 
rising  two  hundred  and  seventeen  feet  in  the  mile,  sur- 
mounting tier  after  tier  of  track.  From  the  height  of 
ten  thousand  feet  there  was  a  slow  descent  to  the  plains 
and  the  mining  town  of  Gunnison.  This  was  then  the 
end  of  regular  travel. 

"  A  construction  train  went  onward  daily,  and  pres- 
ently I  found  a  place  among  the  ties  on  a  flat  car. 
The  first  '  station,'  Kezar,  repeated  the  tale  of  Jonah's 
gourd.  It  was  a  group  of  board  shanties  with  canvas 
roofs,  a  wretched  huddle  of  groggeries  and  boarding 

*  Ripley  Hitchcock  in  The  Chautauquan,  June,  1889. 

241 


242  THE  STORY  OP  THE  RAILROAD. 

tents.  It  had  appeared  in  a  night  when  the  headquar- 
ters of  the  advancing  railroad  were  fixed  there  for  a 
few  days.  But  the  railroad  had  passed  on,  and  Kezar 
was  left  to  languish  while  a  new  terminal  city  made  its 
boasts,  only  to  be  abandoned  in  turn.  Presently  the 
hills  along  the  river  grew  higher  and  more  precipitous, 
the  mesas  gave  way  to  crumbling  crags,  and  with  a 
farewell  shriek  from  the  engine  the  train  thundered 
out  of  sunshine  into  gloom.  Frowning  cliffs  rose 
straight  up  from  the  track  on  one  side,  and  on  the 
other  the  gray  river  brawled  along  the  foot  of  the 
opposing  precipice.  Mountains  of  reddish  gray  rock 
towered  aloft  on  either  hand,  veined  with  white,  and 
seamed  with  fissures  worn  with  the  passage  of  ages. 
Here  great  boulders  literally  overhung  the  track,  and 
again  there  were  dark  caves  or  fleecy  cascades  above, 
or  the  grim  canon  walls  were  almost  exactly  vertical 
from  their  giddy  summits  to  the  ribbon  of  steel  and 
the  river  at  their  base.  The  Black  Caiion  of  the  Gun- 
nison is  known  to  tourists  in  these  days,  but  they  can 
not  know  the  difficulties  of  railroad  building  through  a 
gorge  only  wide  enough  in  places  for  the  river.  Here, 
as  in  the  Eoyal  Gorge,  the  surveyors  picked  their  way 
through  on  ice  in  the  winter.  Here,  when  the  work 
of  construction  was  begun,  men,  and  even  horses  and 
wagons,  were  lowered  down  steep  slopes  by  ropes,  and 
workmen  wielded  drill  and  hammer  hanging  by  ropes 
until  they  had  blasted  out  a  foothold. 

"  I  sto])ped  at  the  boarding  train,  which  stood  op- 
posite a  rock  tower  a  thousand  feet  in  height.  The 
sunlight  fell  upon  ils  ])innacle,  gilding  a  huge  profile 
carved  by  Nature,  but  the  caiion  depths  were  all  iu 


o 
p 

H 

-1 

ro 

ITS 

;£ 

t« 

3 

=r 

AT  THE  FRONT.  243 

shadow.  Here  was  the  temporary  home  of  four  hun- 
dred men.  A  httle  beyond  was  the  working  train  at 
the  very  end  of  the  rails.  All  along  the  dump  or  road- 
bed gangs  of  men  were  busily  unloading  and  placing 
ties  and  rails,  or  levelling  the  surface  with  exactness. 
Presently  a  whistle  blew.  Six  o'clock  had  come,  and 
the  men,  leaving  their  tasks,  scrambled  aboard  the  flat 
cars  and  the  train  rumbled  back  to  the  '  hotel  on 
wheels.'  Long  before  the  cars  stopped  the  men  were 
hustling  each  other,  like  a  flock  of  stampeded  sheep,  in 
a  wild  race  for  supper.  The  seats  were  limited  in  num- 
ber, the  labourers  many,  and  none  had  any  idea  of 
waiting  for  '  second  table.'  A  toilet  was  a  trifling 
matter.  The '  next  morning  would  be  time  enough 
for  soap  and  water.  There  were  swarthy  Italians, 
Irishmen  with  carroty  locks,  men  of  a  score  of  nation- 
alities, begrimed,  tattered,  gnawed  at  by  the  appetite 
given  by  labour  in  the  bracing  Colorado  air,  all  breth- 
ren in  a  purely  animal  instinct,  a  ravenous  desire  to 
satisfy  hunger.  They  swarmed  into  the  old  freight 
cars  which  had  been  fitted  up  with  long  planks  for 
benches  and  tables.  On  the  latter  were  tin  pannikins, 
iron  knives  and  forks,  and  pewter  spoons.  Mounds 
of  coarse  bread,  pans  of  some  strange  stew,  and  pots 
of  rank  black  tea  appeared  and  disappeared  before 
these  lusty  trenchermen.  Words  were  not  wasted. 
Every  act  had  a  bearing  upon  the  business  in  hand. 
A  railroad  navvy  hungry  and  tired  has  '  no  time  for 
nonsense.'  One  by  one  they  rose  from  the  table. 
There  was  nothing  to  be  said.  They  had  been  fed, 
and  for  the  time  they  were  content.  But  presently 
the  social  instinct  reasserted  itself.    They  lighted  black 


2i4  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

pipes  and  drew  together.  Some  rudely  mended  their 
garments  in  company,  and  others  produced  dirty  cards 
or  gathered  to  talk.  A  few  clambered  into  the  narrow 
board  bunks  in  the  cars  and  drew  their  blankets  up 
over  aching  limbs.  It  was  a  glimpse  of  a  hard,  cheer- 
less life,  but  as  I  turned  to  go  back  to  the  construction 
train  some  one  struck  up  a  rollicking  Irish  song,  and 
others  joined,  until  the  cahon  walls  gave  back  the 
chorus. 

"  There  were  special  dangers  in  this  work  aside 
from  ordinary  accident  and  exposure.  A  little  time 
before  two  men  were  swept  away  by  the  rapid  current 
of  the  river;  others  had  been  killed  by  the  overhanging 
rocks.  Yet  the  dangers  of  caiion  work  would  be  pre- 
ferred by  many  to  an  open  country  harried  by  the 
fierce  Apaches  of  the  Southwest  and  northern  Mexico, 
which  I  visited  after  leaving  the  Gunnison  country.  A 
year  or  two  before,  the  famous  Apache  chief,  Victorio, 
and  his  bloodthirsty  followers,  had  raided  the  valley  of 
the  Kio  Grande.  One  contractor  told  me  of  a  chase 
which  lasted  for  three  days.  At  night  he  and  his  men 
travelled  as  best  they  could.  In  the  morning  they 
chose  an  advantageous  place,  made  a  corral  of  their 
wagons,  and  lay  behind  them  all  day  while  the  Indians 
circled  about  at  a  distance,  exchanging  shots,  but  never 
venturing  on  a  direct  attack.  It  is  not  hard  to  imagine 
the  harassing  strain  of  these  days,  but  happily  the 
white  men  escaped  the  fate  of  others  whose  graves 
are  in  the  lonely  sand  hills  to  the  south  of  El  Paso  del 
Norte. 

"  The  end  of  the  Mexican  Central's  rails  was  two 
hundred  miles  below  the  frontier  when  I  entered  Mex- 


AT  THE  FRONT.  245 

ico  in  1883,  and  for  this  distance  travel  was  simply  a 
question  of  securing  a  permit  and  waiting  for  a  con- 
struction train.  But  less  than  a  year  before  eight 
brave  men  had  laid  down  their  lives  to  open  the  way. 
For  forty  miles  below  Paso  del  Norte  stretches  the 
desert  known  as  '  The  Sand  Hills.'  At  its  southern 
limit  I  saw  four  rude  crosses  outlined  against  the  sky, 
mute,  lonely  witnesses  to  the  fate  of  avant-coureurs 
of  civilization.  In  June,  1881,  four  engineers  were 
riding  down  through  the  sand  hills  when  the  sudden 
crack  of  Winchesters  told  of  the  remorseless  Apaches. 
On  the  hill  marked  by  the  crosses  the  white  men  made 
their  last  stand.  There  was  no  chance  of  help  or  res- 
cue. Surreiider  meant  only  ghastly  torture,  so  they 
fought  side  by  side  behind  a  heap  of  sand  until  every 
cartridge  was  gone.  Had  they  been  English  soldiers  in 
an  African  campaign  sent  against  Zulus  who  were 
fighting  to  protect  their  homes,  England  would  not 
have  allowed  their  heroism  to  be  forgotten.  But  they 
were  only  engineers,  representing  not  aggression  and 
conquest,  but  the  advance  of  civilization,  and  so  they 
laid  down  their  lives  and  were  forgotten,  while  you 
and  I  come  after  them  in  safety. 

"  It  was  with  difficulty  even  then  that  I  learned 
their  names — Fordham,  Leavitt,  Grew,  and  Wallace. 
It  was  characteristic  of  the  life  that  no  one  had  ap- 
peared to  claim  Wallace's  money  and  papers,  which 
were  found  buried  in  the  sand  beneath  his  corpse. 
Like  many  another  frontier  hero,  the  story  of  his  life 
died  with  him. 

"  Life  at  the  head  of  the  rails  in  Mexico  had  a  pic- 
turesqueness  of  its  own.    There  was  the  element  of  his- 


246  THE  STORY  OP  THE  RAILROAD. 

torical  interest.  Our  construction  train  passed  down 
the  valley,  close  beside  a  bluff  where  heaps  of  earth 
recalled  the  battle  of  Sacramento.  At  the  time  of  my 
visit  the  construction  camp  was  about  fifteen  miles 
north  of  Chihuahua.  We  rode  to  the  end  of  the  rails 
on  fiat  cars  loaded  with  ties.  As  the  rails  were  laid 
the  flat  cars  of  the  working  train  were  backed  down 
and  other  materials  kept  within  easy  reach.  On  a  side 
track  stood  a  boarding  train,  but  many  of  the  men 
were  living  in  tents,  and  all  about  us  the  smoke  of 
their  fires  rose  in  the  clear,  dry  air,  which  brought 
out  the  very  seams  and  fissures  of  the  mountain  peaks 
along  the  distant  horizon.  Most  of  the  contractors 
had  their  own  '  outfit,'  a  kitchen  and  storage  tent  with 
simple  utensils,  tents  for  themselves,  containing  rude 
bunks  or  occasionally  cots,  and  sometimes  tents  for 
their  men.  By  boarding  their  men,  and  perhaps  sell- 
ing light  supplies,  they  realized  a  double  profit.  If 
prices  were  high,  there  was  an  excuse  in  frontier 
duties  averaging  about  one  hundred  per  cent  on  manu- 
factured articles.  On  canned  goods,  always  in  de- 
mand, the  import  duty  was  seventy-two  cents  a  kilo- 
gramme, and  the  vessel,  whether  glass  or  tin,  was  taxed 
at  the  same  rate.  '  What  do  you  think  those  pickles 
cost  me?'  asked  a  contractor  in  whose  tent  I  dined 
that  day.  Their  cost  was  fifty  dollars  a  half  barrel. 
Moreover,  there  were  municipal  duties  to  be  paid  be- 
fore imports  could  enter  a  city.  But  there  have  been 
changes  since  then.  Two  civilizations — the  American 
anrl  the  olrl  conservative  Spanish — have  adnpted  them- 
selves siifficiontly  at  least  to  avoid  constant  friction. 
But  at  that   time  the  American  railroad  builder  was 


AT  THE  FRONT.  247 

almost  as  truly  a  pioneer  as  Cortes  among  the  native 
Mexicans. 

"  The  contrast  of  types  was  a  curious  study.  Be- 
side the  stalwart  American  or  Irishman  in  faded  flan- 
nels and  high  boots,  the  swarthy  Mexican,  his  scanty 
dress  concealed  beneath  his  striped  serape,  squatted  be- 
fore his  fire,  lazily  rolling  cigarettes  as  he  cooked  his 
frijoles  and  tortillas.  Every  morning  Mexicans  from 
Chihuahua  rode  up  to  the  camp  and  stared  in  passive 
wonderment  at  the  railroad,  the  ferrocarril,  which 
most  of  them  had  never  seen  before.  There  they  sat 
like  the  gayly  coloured  images  sold  in  their  cities,  until 
a  sudden  shriek  from  the  engine  drove  their  horses  wild 
with  fear.  As  railroad  labourers  the  lower  class  Mexi- 
cans were  more  picturesque  than  useful,  but  they  soon 
learned  some  of  the  railroad's  advantages.  The  en- 
gineers told  remarkable  tales,  like  that  of  one  of  the 
men  who  tied  a  venerable  bull  to  the  track  at  night  and 
appeared,  after  the  inevitable  result,  with  a  claim  for 
the  loss  of  a  herd  of  cows. 

"  I  rode  into  Chihuahua  on  horseback,  and  return- 
ing after  a  week  with  a  companion,  we  drove  to  the 
camp,  slept  in  a  freight  car,  and  next  morning  drove 
on  to  a  Mexican  ranch  near  Encinillas.  Here  an  en- 
gine and  caboose  stood  on  the  track  waiting  orders. 
There  were  no  regular  trains,  and  we  ran  from  one 
siding  to  another,  feeling  our  way  as  best  we  could, 
or,  by  lying  by,  broiling  in  the  sun.  Night  came  on 
while  we  were  thus  labouring  onward.  We  had  had 
nothing  to  eat,  and  there  was  nothing  short  of  Paso 
del  Norte.  But  presently  the  engineer  came  back  to 
us  and  revealed  a  can  of  chicken  and  some  bread.    It 


248  THE  STORY  OP  THE  RAILROAD. 

was  characteristic  that  he  should  divide  his  rations 
among  six  hungry  men — characteristic  of  Western  rail- 
road men. 

"  These  trifling  details  may  help  to  illustrate  the 
unsettled  conditions  of  life  and  travel  before  the  formal 
opening  of  a  road,  but  the  life  in  Chihuahua  was  lux- 
urious compared  with  the  experiences  which  followed 
in  Sonora.  The  Sonora  Railroad  was  built  northward 
from  Guaymas  to  the  frontier,  where  it  joined  the  line 
built  down  from  Benson  on  the  Southern  Pacific. 
There  was  a  gap  of  about  twenty  miles  in  September, 
1882,  when  I  reached  the  frontier.  The  northern  rails 
ended  at  Line  City,  a  typical  camp,  which  consisted 
of  a  dozen  shanties  and  tents  and  as  many  mountains 
of  empty  beer  bottles.  There  was  no  work  in  progress 
at  that  end,  and  life  was  therefore  comparatively  quiet. 

"  When  the  ambulance  of  the  chief  engineer  came 
up,  there  were  doleful  tales  of  Apaches.  Some  of  the 
Chiricahuas  had  been  raiding  along  the  frontier.  Two 
white  men  had  been  killed  on  the  road  a  week  before, 
and  nobody  ventured  far  among  the  hills  without  fear- 
ing the  sudden  swoop  of  these  Ishmaelites  of  the  South- 
west. Stories  of  the  disappearance  of  herders  and 
ihe  loss  of  cattle  came  in  from  the  ranches.  It  is  a 
strange  experience  for  one  from  the  country  of  law  and 
order  and  police  and  the  commonplace  to  find  himself 
among  primitive  conditions,  a  participant  in  the  con- 
flict between  civilization  and  savagery. 

"  So  far  as  my  own  journey  was  concerned,  the 
danger  was  too  slight  to  be  considered  seriously.  The 
great  construction  camp  was  less  than  twenty  miles 
below,  and  there  was  travel  enough  by  that  time  prac- 


AT  THE  FRONT.  249 

tically  to  insure  the  safety  of  the  road.  It  was  due 
to  custom  more  than  actual  danger  that  the  driver  of 
the  ambulance  kept  his  Winchester  by  his  side;  but 
there  was  one  passenger  who  saw  danger  lurking  be- 
hind every  bush.  He  was  a  Hebrew  merchant  from 
Guaymas,  one  of  the  many  thrifty  traders  of  his  race 
who  have  followed  close  behind  the  pioneers  to  estab- 
lish trading  houses  throughout  the  southwestern  coun- 
try. My  companion  carried  a  little  black  bag,  which 
no  one  was  allowed  to  touch,  and  this  he  was  clearly 
prepared  to  defend  with  his  life.  He  had  equipped 
himself  with  a  new  Winchester  and  six-shooter,  and 
the  only  real  danger  of  the  trip  lay  in  his  manipula- 
tion of  these  unwonted  weapons.  After  the  mules 
started,  he  undertook  to  charge  the  magazine  of  the 
Winchester  and  to  load  the  revolver.  As  the  ambu- 
lance swayed  from  side  to  side,  the  muzzle  of  the  rifle 
now  explored  the  driver's  ribs,  and  again  stared  threat- 
eningly into  my  face.  Of  the  danger  of  a  cocked  gun 
or  a  sudden  or  severe  blow  on  the  hammer  this  man 
of  peace  seemed  to  know  nothing. 

"  So  we  drove  on  past  the  little  Mexican  custom- 
house with  its  pompous  tenant,  among  hills  dotted 
with  live  oaks,  over  the  '  summit,'  and  down  through 
the  beautiful  Magdalena  Valley,  passing  contractors' 
camps  and  swarthy  Mexicans  at  work  on  the  dump, 
until  we  reached  the  end  of  the  rails  at  Agua  Zarca. 
Here  were  sunshine  and  colour  in  place  of  the  gloom 
of  the  Black  Canon.  Mexicans  and  Yaqui  Indians 
worked  about  the  construction  train,  clad  in  light 
colours,  vociferating  and  gesticulating  with  Southern 
animation,  picturesque  in  spite  of  themselves  and  their 


250  THE  STORY   OP  THE  RAILROAD. 

prosaic  handling  of  ties  and  rails,  just  as  the  rhythm 
of  the  Spanish  tongue  preserved  its  musical  cadence  in 
spite  of  the  shrill  voices. 

"  At  night  I  went  out  into  the  camp.  All  ahout 
us  the  camp  fires  blazed  among  the  chaparral  and  mes- 
quite,  lighting  swarthy  faces  with  seemingly  sinister 
eyes  gleaming  under  broad  sombreros.  There  was  a 
time  when  the  scene  would  have  been  described  in  a 
phrase — the  brigands  of  Salvator  Rosa.  It  was  a  fas- 
cinating sight,  this  camp  in  the  firelight,  with  figures 
sitting  and  standing,  always  draped  in  the  gay  serape 
which  the  meanest  peon  wears  with  native  grace,  but 
the  glitter  and  glow  had  vanished  in  the  gray  morning. 
I  was  called  at  four  o'clock  to  take  a  train  southward, 
and  when  I  left  the  car  the  air  was  very  cold.  The 
camp  fires  had  burned  low.  In  that  uncertain  gray 
light  even  the  scrapes  had  lost  their  warmth  of  colour. 

"A  little  later,  and  the  local  colouring  asserted  itself 
more  vividly  than  before.  The  train,  consisting  of 
two  passenger  cars  and  a  dozen  freight  and  box  cars, 
stopped  at  Magdalena,  where  one  of  the  perennial 
fiestas  had  just  closed,  and  two  hundred  Mexicans  and 
Indians  waited  on  the  platform.  There  was  colour 
enough  and  to  spare  in  that  company  of  gaudy  serapes, 
sombreros  glittering  with  gold  and  silver,  and  the  gar- 
ish red  blankets  of  the  Yaquis.  But  the  baggage! 
Huge  rolls  of  straw  matting — patitas — used  as  beds, 
stone  mortars  for  grinding  corn,  wicker  crates  filled 
indiscriminately  with  cheeses  and  dirty  clothes,  curi- 
ously painted  trunks,  ancient  enough  to  have  carried 
the  wardrobe  of  Cabeza  de  Vaca,  sacks  of  pomegranates, 
demijohns  of  mescal,  and  an  indescribable  mixture  of 


AT  THE  FRONT.  251 

pots  and  kettles  and  household  articles.  Most  of  the 
forenoon  was  occupied  in  painting  station  numbers 
upon  the  various  '  lots/  to  use  the  phrase  of  the  auc- 
tioneer. Most  of  the  afternoon  was  enlivened  by  the 
hospitable  Mexican  baggagemaster,  who  freely  dis- 
tributed the  mescal,  pomegranates,  and  melons  of  his 
passengers  among  a  group  assembled  in  his  car. 

"  This  was  one  of  the  phases  of  early  railroad  life 
in  Mexico,  and  another  less  amusing  was  the  Mexican 
desire  to  interfere  with  or  make  victims  of  American 
railroad  men.  One  station  agent  told  of  arrest  and  im- 
prisonment because  a  Mexican  had  left  his  blankets 
on  the  station  platform  until  they  were  stolen.  A 
brakeman  boasted  of  a  dozen  arrests.  A  conductor 
whom  I  sought  to  aid  in  Hermosillo  was  accused  of 
murder  by  witnesses  who  swore  that  he  not  only  put 
a  man  off  the  train,  but  even  held  him  beneath  the 
wheels.  The  '  victim '  was  produced  in  court,  but 
even  this  failed  to  secure  the  conductor's  acquittal, 
and  for  attempting  to  see  him  I  myself  was  arrested 
and  escorted  to  jail  by  a  squad  of  soldiers.  In  my 
case  the  thing  was  a  trifle,  for  release  with  apologies 
from  the  general  and  the  Governor  followed  within 
half  an  hour,  but  many  of  the  railroad  men  suffered 
severely.  The  story  of  early  railroad  building  in  Mexi- 
co is  a  story  of  misunderstanding,  of  imposition,  and 
of  petty  outrages.  The  Americans  were  not  without 
sin,  but  in  many  cases  the  trouble  could  be  traced  to 
Mexican  jealousy  or  greed. 

"  The  next  year  I  followed  the  trail  of  blood  which 
marked  the  progress  of  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  Rail- 
way across  northern  Arizona.     There  may  have  been 


253  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

more  violence  than  usual,  but  no  Western  railroad  lias 
been  built  without  bloodshed.  At  Coolidge,  Ariz.,  five 
desperadoes  fortified  themselves  in  a  log  cabin  and 
sallied  forth  to  harry  land  and  people,  until  they  were 
surrounded  and  shot  down.  Holbrook,  Winslow,  Wil- 
liams, all  had  their  era  of  crime.  At  Canon  Diablo  a 
murderous  plot  to  rob  the  pay  car  was  fortunately 
frustrated.  Flagstaff  *  was  quiet  enough  at  the  time 
I  '  outfitted  '  there  to  visit  some  newly  discovered  ruins 
of  cliff-dwellers,  but  of  the  fourteen  graves  in  the  rude 
inclosure  beneath  the  pines,  eleven  were  the  graves 
of  men  who  met  with  violent  deaths.  So  the  records 
might  be  continued,  although  at  the  time  of  my  visit  the 
rails  had  reached  the  Colorado  River,  most  of  the  con- 
struction hands  had  come  back,  and  few  besides  the 
bridge  builders  remained.  So  on  the  Northern  Pa- 
cific, which  I  travelled  over  the  same  summer,  there 
were  only  the  ruins  of  construction  camps  and  some 
lonely  graves  in  the  mountains  to  tell  of  the  army  of 
men  suddenly  gathered  together  only  to  vanish  like 
the  morning  dew.  Their  work  was  done.  After  them 
came  the  magnates  and  politicians,  whom  I  saw  feast- 
ing, like  Belshazzar,  in  Portland,  Ore.,  while  the  tele- 
graph operators  were  writing  the  story  of  falling  stocks 
in  New  York  and  impending  disaster. 

"  The  recruiting  of  those  armies  of  labourers  is  a 
peculiar  calling.  The  contractors  enlist  men  through 
advertisements  or  agents  in  the  nearest  cities  and  ship 
them  in  gangs.    The  men  usually  bring  their  blankets, 

*  Amoiifj  the  many  fhanf^es  since  this  article  was  written, 
none  is  more  curious  than  that  which  has  made  FlagstafT  known 
to  the  world  as  the  site  of  Mr.  Percival  Lowell's  observatory. 


AT  THE  FRONT.  253 

and  sometimes  modest  kits.  They  are  boarded  and 
usually  furnished  with  sleeping  places  in  cars,  tents, 
or  shanties  by  the  railroad  company,  the  construction 
company,  or  the  contractors,  as  the  case  may  be.  Their 
wages  probably  average  a  dollar  and  a  half  a  day,  al- 
though any  skilled  labour,  of  course,  commands  more. 
Their  board  may  be  estimated  at  about  four  dollars 
a  week.  With  the  exception  of  the  Italians,  they  save 
little.  When  the  road  is  built,  some  of  the  better  men 
secure  permanent  employment.  The  others,  perhaps 
a  thousand  miles  from  their  last  home,  obtain  return 
passage  from  the  railroad  company  if  possible,  or  beg 
and  steal  rides  on  freight  trains,  or  travel  on  a  '  tie 
pass,'  an  ironical  phrase  for  the  privilege  of  walking 
on  the  track.  Some  of  them  re-enforce  the  army  of 
tramps  constantly  moving  backward  and  forward  along 
the  railroads.  It  is  a  small  minority,  in  all  probability, 
who  are  the  better  for  their  taste  of  the  strange,  wild 
life  at  the  head  of  the  rails. 

"  Western  railroad  building  has  been  an  essential 
factor  in  our  national  development,  as  every  one  knows, 
but  few  have  any  knowledge  of  railroad  exploration, 
of  the  venturesome  work  of  engineers,  and  of  the  rail- 
road construction  camp.  A  recklessness  born  of  free- 
dom from  restraint  and  the  splendid  exhilaration  of 
the  Western  air  has  soiled  many  pages  of  the  record, 
but  very  many  of  the  crimes  have  been  due  to  the 
bloodsuckers  and  parasites,  the  gamblers,  thugs, 
thieves,  and  rumsellers  who  infest  railroad  camps.  If 
there  are  dark  pages  in  the  history,  there  are  many 
others  golden  with  stories  of  unselfishness,  of  steadfast 
courage,  and  of  heroism." 
18 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

THE   EAILEOAD    AND   THE    PEOPLE, 

"  Every  man  in  the  land  is  interested  daily  and  constantly  in 
railroads  and  the  transportation  of  persons  and  property  over 
them." — Judge  Thomas  M.  Cooley. 

Daeing  engineers,  backed  by  equally  daring  capi- 
tal, have  pushed  the  railroad  always  far  in  advance 
of  civilization  and  business,  so  that  we  who  are  still 
on  this  side  of  fifty  have  always  had  the  railroad.  The 
people  have  not  always  made  the  railroad,  but  they 
have  always  shown  a  disposition  to  dictate  to  it,  and 
in  the  few  instances  where  the  General  Government 
has  lent  its  credit  the  people  have  insisted  upon  the 
right  to  run  the  road.  This  is  particularly  true  of  the 
people  who  live  along  the  line  that  has  received  gov- 
ernmental assistance.  True,  as  taxpayers  they  have 
contributed  no  more  to  the  work  than  others  who  live 
thousands  of  miles  away  and  have  received  all  its  bene- 
fits, but  they  insist  u])on  the  right  to  enter  the  man- 
ager's office  and  ]iut  their  feet  on  the  desk.  They 
have  been  known  to  insist  upon  free  transportation 
and  special  freight  rates,  on  the  ground  that  the  peo- 
ple made  the  road,  and  that  "  we  are  the  people."  * 

*  "  I  found  people  in  Nebraska  who  were  possessed  with  the 
idea  that  the   Uuiou  Pacillc  was  constructed  for,  and  should  be 
2b\ 


THE  RAILROAD  AND  THE  PEOPLE.         255 

Certain  inferior  brands  of  very  cheap  politi- 
cians have  deemed  it  their  duty  to  array  the  people 
against  all  corporations,  especially  against  the  rail- 
roads. This  feeling  finally  got  to  be  so  general  in 
the  West  that  the  employees  of  the  railroad  actually 
came  to  regard  the  company  which  gave  them  a 
livelihood  as  a  common  enemy.  Fortunately  for 
itself  more  than  for  the  corporation,  the  great  army 
that  operates  the  road  is  beginning  to  think  for 
itself,  and  has  stopped  taking  its  opinions  blindly 
from  others. 

A  branch  of  industry  which  directly  furnishes  em- 
ployment to  two  million  people,  and  indirectly  to  two 
millions  more,  ought  to  be  encouraged.  The  railroad 
can  not  be  called  a  monopoly.  Wherever  there  is  too 
much  business  for  one  road,  a  competing  line  is  sure 
to  be  built,  and  the  laws  passed  by  the  people  pro- 
hibit the  consolidation  of  competing  or  parallel  lines. 
As  one  result  of  paralleling,  aided  by  adverse  legisla- 

operated  mainly  in  deference  to,  the  wishes  of  that  section,  and 
•who  actually  believed  that  their  State  should  be  consulted  by  the 
managers  before  any  improvements  were  made,  innovations  in- 
troduced, or  extensions  pushed  forward.  In  the  minds  of  such 
people,  the  question  whether  the  road  had  done  more  for  the 
State  than  the  State  had  done  for  the  road  never  seemed  to  rise. 
But  those  who  take  an  unreasoning  and,  to  my  mind,  a  most 
unjust  view  of  the  conduct  of  the  Union  Pacific,  are  exceptions 
to  the  rule.  Among  the  most  advanced  thinkers  of  Nebraska  a 
different  feeling  exists  and  different  opinions  prevail.  They 
point  out  with  just  and  pardonable  pride  the  wonderful  strides 
which  the  young  State  has  made  since  the  Union  Pacific  Railway 
was  constructed." — Hon.  Jesse  Spalding,  to  the  Secretary  of  the 
Interior. 


256  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

tion,  there  are  in  the  United  States  nearly  one  hundred 
thousand  miles  of  bankrupt  roads.  The  American 
railroad  earns  $1,200,000,000  annually,  and  yet  nearly 
two  thirds  of  the  mileage  are  in  the  hands  of  a  receiver, 
or  ought  to  be.  Then  why  should  the  people  combine 
against  the  railroad,  which  is  not  allowed  to  combine 
even  to  save  its  own  life?  To  be  sure,  no  patriotic 
citizen  of  this  expanding  republic  would  wish  to  see 
the  railroad  run  the  Government;  and  yet  there  is  no 
more  reason  why  the  Government  should  run  the  rail- 
road than  there-  is  for  its  interference  with  packing 
houses,  flour  mills,  or  the  millinery  business.  Those 
Avho  advocate  the  Government  ownership  of  the  rail- 
road point  with  pride  to  the  splendid  management  by 
the  Government  of  the  railway  mail  service.  Well, 
that  service  is  the  direct  result  of  the  enterprise  of 
and  sharp  competition  between  the  various  railroad 
systems. 

When  young  William  H.  Vanderbilt  told  his  fa- 
ther that  the  Post  Office  Department  wanted  the  com- 
pany to  build  and  equip  twenty  postal  cars  to  run  over 
the  Vanderbilt  system  (the  New  York  Central  and 
the  Lake  Shore)  between  New  York  and  Chicago,  and 
that  the  department  had  promised  to  support  the  road, 
to  give  it  all  mail  matter  originating  at  or  coming 
into  the  New  York  Post  Office,  provided  the  same 
could  be  delivered  at  its  destination  by  the  Vander- 
bilts  as  quickly  as  by  any  other  line,  the  old  com- 
modore shook  his  head.  "  Do  it,  if  you  want  to," 
he  said,  "  and  if  Chauncey  wants  it,  but  I  know  the 
Post  Office  Department.  They  will  break  with  you 
within  Iho  year." 


THE  RAILROAD  AND  THE  PEOPLE.         257 

The  commodore  was  a  bad  guesser.  They  "  broke  " 
within  a  month.* 

President  Scott,  of  the  Pennsylvania,  not  to  be 
outdone  by  his  splendid  rival,  now  put  on  a  similar 
service,  whereupon  Congress,  seeing  the  rivalry  be- 
tween the  two  systems,  and  thinking  perhaps  that  the 
roads  would  keep  it  up,  began  the  parsimonious  work 
of  cutting  down  the  already  inadequate  compensation. 
And  then  the  roads  most  interested  withdrew  the 
service. 

Here  is  a  fair  illustration  of  the  treatment  ac- 
corded the  railroad.  It  shows  also  the  difference  be- 
tween politics  and  business  enterprise.  The  people 
are  apt  to  argiie  that  if  a  train  is  going  over  the  road 
once  a  day  it  might  as  well  go  quickly,  and  have  done 
with  it,  but  it  costs  something  in  fuel,  in  the  strain 
on  machinery,  and  the  rack  and  wreck  of  the  roadbed 
to  run  at  a  high  rate  of  speed.  The  people  do  not 
know,  or  else  they  forget,  that  the  resistance  of  a 
train  is  four  times  as  great  at  sixty  miles  an  hour  as 
it  is  at  thirty  miles  an  hour,  and  the  amount  of  steam 
generated  and  power  exerted  must  be  eight  times  as 
great  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other.  The  comforts 
of  travel  have  increased  continually,  while  the  cost 
has  decreased.  The  fare  in  the  Eocky  Mountains,  in 
little,  narrow,  cramped  cars,  used  to  be  ten  cents  a 
mile;  now  it  is  from  two  and  a  half  to  five  cents  in 
a  palace  car. 

*  "  Within  three  weeks,  despite  the  indignant  protest  of  Colo- 
nel Bangs,  the  mails  of  three  States  were  ordered  to  be  taken 
from  this  and  given  to  another  road." — Ex-Postmaster-Genebai* 
James. 


^58  THE  STORY  OP  THE   RAILROAD. 

Private  enterprise,  with  a  few  exceptions,  has  cre- 
ated within  three  quarters  of  a  century  a  splendid  sys- 
tem of  railroads  in  America,  the  rails  of  which,  it  is 
said,  would  reach  all  the  way  from  the  earth  to  the 
moon;  whose  locomotives  and  cars,  coupled  together, 
would  make  three  solid  trains  across  the  continent 
from  New  York  to  San  Francisco. 

Every  safety  appliance  that  money  can  buy  or  in- 
ventive genius  can  turn  out  has  been  applied  to  the 
locomotives,  cars,  and  signal  systems,  until  it  is  almost 
absolutely  safe  to-day  to  travel  by  rail.  More  people 
perish  annually  by  falling  out  of  windows  than  are 
killed  in  railroad  collisions  or  wrecks.  Travelling 
night  and  day,  a  man  ought,  according  to  statistics, 
to  get  killed  once  in  every  four  hundred  years. 

Every  stake  stuck  in  a  proposed  road  is  a  pros- 
pect hole,  every  station  along  the  line  a  mine,  and 
every  new  road  a  Klondike  to  the  country  through 
which  it  passes.  All  the  gold  in  the  world  would  not 
buy  a  half  interest  in  the  American  railroad,  which 
earns  as  much  money  annually  as  all  the  silver  and 
gold  mines  in  the  United  States  yield  in  ten  years. 
From  the  spring  to  the  autumn  of  1887  a  little  army 
of  ten  thousand  men,  commanded  by  General  D.  C. 
Shepard,  added  eighty  millions  to  the  wealth  of  our 
country  by  the  rapid  construction  of  five  hundred  and 
forty-five  miles  of  road  in  Dakota  and  Montana.  This 
estimate  is  on  the  principle  that  every  dollar  invested 
in  railroad  construction  is  worth  ten  dollars  to  the 
country  through  which  the  road  passes.  The  Ameri- 
can railroad  is  a  big  thing.  It  employs  one  out  of 
every  twenty  of  the  working  people  you  pass.     Its 


THE  RAILROAD  AND  THE  PEOPLE.         £59 

freight  work  is  equal  to  the  moving  of  one  hundred 
thousand  million  tons  a  mile  every  year.  If  one  man 
did  all  the  travelling,  he  would  make  fourteen  thou- 
sand million  miles  annually,  whipping  the  tail  lights 
of  his  train  round  the  earth  at  the  equator  every  fif- 
teen minutes,  but  it  would  take  him  eighty  thousand 
years  to  do  the  year's  work,  with  no  stops  for  meals. 

The  eight  hundred  independent  companies  that 
run  the  American  railroad  pay  their  employees  nearly 
half  a  billion  dollars  a  year,  but  pay  interest  only  on 
thirty  per  cent  of  its  securities;  the  other  seventy  per 
cent  earn  nothing. 

As  early  as  1835  the  American  republic  had  over 
half  the  railroad  mileage  of  the  world.  In  all  the 
West  the  railroad  has  been  the  pioneer.  Although  the 
Federal  Government,  States,  and  in  a  few  instances 
counties  and  municipalities,  have  helped  the  railroad, 
it  has,  on  the  whole,  been  discouraged  by  the  people. 
The  good  people  of  the  State  of  New  York  as  late  as 
1858  were  holding  public  meetings  and  resolving  that 
the  New  York  Central  had  no  right  to  compete  with 
the  Erie  Canal.  Verily  the  people  have  made  some 
bad  breaks  in  their  efforts  to  keep  the  railroad  down.* 
One  of  the  good  results  of  the  great  evil  of  the  civil 
war  was  that  it  promoted  the  growth  of  the  railroad. 
Men  then  began  to  think  of  the  nation,  national  needs, 
and  national  development.    The  war  removed  all  local 

*  "  It  is  less  than  thirty  years  since  a  convention  at  Syracuse, 
representing  no  small  part  of  the  public  sentiment  of  New  York, 
formally  recommended '  the  passage  of  a  law  by  the  next  Legisla- 
ture which  shall  confine  the  railroads  of  this  State  to  the  business 
lor  which  they  were  originally  created.' " — A.  T.  Hadlby, 


260  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

jealousy  of  interstate  traffic.  Out  of  the  necessities 
that  arose  came  valuable  ideas,  which  were  afterward 
developed,  perfected,  and  used  by  the  engineers  who 
made  the  railroad  in  the  West.* 

The  most  beneficent  function  of  the  railroad,  it 
has  been  truthfully  said,  is  that  of  a  carrier  of  freight. 
It  moves  a  ton  of  wheat  a  mile  for  a  cent.  The  Ameri- 
can railroad  makes  it  possible  for  the  hungry  millions 
of  the  crowded  European  cities  to  break  bread  oftener 
than  they  used  to  break  it  before  the  road  was  built. 
The  railroad  has  helped  to  reclaim  hundreds  of  mil- 
lions of  acres  of  land  in  the  West  and  Northwest,  and 
made  homes  for  people  at  the  rate  of  over  half  a  mil- 
lion a  year  for  the  past  half  hundred  years.  It  would 
be  impossible  to  print  in  one  book  a  complete  list  of 
the  blessings  that  have  come  to  the  people  of  the 
United  States  as  a  direct  result  of  the  American  rail- 
road, or  to  attempt  to  record  all  the  wrongs,  big  and 
little,  done  to  the  railroad  by  the  same  blessed  com- 
munity. 

*  "  I  firmly  believe  that  the  civil  war  trained  the  men  who 
made  that  great  national  highway." — General  Sherman. 

"  Necessity  brought  out  during  the  war  bold  structures,  that 
in  the  rough  were  models  of  economy  and  strength.  In  taking 
care  of  direct  and  lateral  strains  by  positions  of  posts  and  braces 
they  adapted  principles  that  are  used  to-day  in  the  highest  and 
boldest  structures.  And  I  undertake  to  say,  that  no  structure 
up  to  date  has  been  built  whicth  has  not  followed  those  simple 
principles  that  were  evolved  out  of  necessity,  though  reported 
against  during  the  war  by  the  most  experienced  and  reliable  en- 
gineers of  the  world."— (f'erteroZ  Douue,  Chief  Engineer,  Union 
Pacific. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

THE  BEGINNINGS   OF  THE   EXPEESS   BUSINESS. 

The  idea  of  taking  charge  of  money  and  other 
vahiables,  becoming  responsible  for  them  en  route,  and 
delivering  them  in  good  order  at  their  destination, 
originated  with  William  Frederick  Harnden.  He  had 
been  a  passenger  conductor  on  the  Boston  and  Worces- 
ter Eailroad,  later  ticket  agent  in  the  Boston  office, 
and  no  doubt  the  many  calls  he  had  from  people  who 
were  willing  to  trust  him  with  their  shopping  helped 
him  to  appreciate  the  necessity  of  a  public  errand  boy 
on  the  road.  After  three  years  in  the  ticket  office 
Harnden  visited  New  York.  He  wanted  outdoor  em- 
ployment. "  Do  errands  between  New  York  and  Bos- 
ton," said  his  friend  James  W.  Hale,  who  ran  a  news- 
stand called  the  Tontine  Reading  Room,  and  was  agent 
for  the  Providence  steamboat.  People  used  to  dump 
small  pieces  of  freight  in  the  Tontine  and  ask  Hale 
to  send  them  on.  In  time  the  bankers  and  brokers 
got  to  know  him,  and  would  go  down  to  his  place  at 
the  corner  of  Wall  and  Water  Streets,  hand  him  letters 
and  bundles  of  greenbacks,  and  ask  him  to  give  them 
to  some  one  who  was  going  to  Boston,  Providence,  or 
wherever  the  package  happened  to  be  billed  for.  In 
this  way  Hale  saw  the  need  of  a  messenger,  and  ad- 

261 


262  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

vised  Harnclen  to  go  into  the  business.  This  was 
early  in  1839.  On  the  23d  of  February  of  the  same 
year  an  advertisement  in  the  Boston  papers  stated  that 
W.  F.  Harnden  had  made  arrangements  with  the  Provi- 
dence Eailroad  and  New  York  Steamboat  Companies 
"  to  run  a  car  through  from  Boston  to  New  York  and 
vice  versa  four  times  a  week." 

He  would  accompany  the  car  himself,  the  notice 
stated,  "  for  the  purpose  of  purchasing  goods,  collect- 
ing draughts,  notes,  and  bills." 

The  original  valise  in  which  Harnden  carried  all 
his  freight  for  months  was,  a  few  years  ago  (and  may 
be  still),  in  Cheney  and  Company's  express  office  at 
Boston. 

The  express  started  on  the  4th  of  March,  and  on 
the  31st  the  Boston  Transcript  gave  Mr.  Harnden  edi- 
torial notice,  stating  that  the  express  had  been  found 
"  highly  convenient  to  those  who  wish  to  send  small 
packages  from  one  city  to  the  other.  It  affords  us 
much  pleasure  to  recommend  the  express  to  the  notice 
of  our  readers." 

Harnden  appears  to  have  got  in  touch  with  the 
editors  of  the  great  dailies  of  New  York  and  Boston 
at  once,  for  on  the  14th  of  May  the  editorial  page  of 
the  Transcript  made  the  following  acknowledgment: 
"  We  are  indebted  to  our  friend  Harnden,  of  the  Pack- 
age Express,  for  the  United  States  Gazette  (Philadel- 
phia) of  yesterday." 

A  man  carrying  packages,  or  even  messages  only, 
was  not  called  a  messenger,  but  an  "  express."  * 

*  *'  Some  little  idea  of  the  opposition  that  exists  among  New 
York  editors  may  be  formed,  when  wo  mention  that  so  great  was 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  EXPRESS  BUSINESS.  2G3 

In  a  year  Harnden  had  built  up  quite  a  business. 
His  brother  Adolphus  was  one  of  his  best  messengers, 
and  yet,  according  to  Stimson's  History  of  the  Express 
Business,  "  Adolphus  Harnden  was  by  no  means  a  fast 
young  man." 

In  less  than  a  year  the  founder  of  the  express  busi- 
ness had  a  foretaste  of  the  risk  he  was  running  in  en- 
gaging to  carry  and  deliver  money  and  other  valu- 
ables. 

The  first  disaster  came,  as  historian  Stimson  puts 
it,  "  on  that  bitter  cold,  dark,  calamitous  night,  the 
13th  of  February,  1840."  That  night  the  steamer  Lex- 
ington, with  thirty  thousand  dollars  in  specie  for  the 
Merchants'  Bank  of  Boston,  on  accounts  of  the  Govern- 
ment, and  twenty  thousand  dollars  in  "  greenbacks  " 
and  other  valuables  for  various  persons,  burned  off 
Long  Island.  Only  four  out  of  the  one  hundred  and 
fifty  passengers  and  crew  were  saved,  Adolphus  Harn- 
den being  among  the  victims.  W.  F.  Harnden,  the 
founder,  died  five  years  later,  six  years  after  starting 
the  business. 


the  anxiety  to  get  the  start  of  each  other  and  have  the  credit  of 
being  out  first,  that  three  expresses  were  employed  by  the  print- 
ers of  that  city  to  bring  on  President  Jackson's  message.  The 
Courier  and  Enquirer,  speaking  of  it,  says :  '  It  was  delivered 
yesterday  at  12  o'clock,  and  conveyed  from  thence  to  Baltimore 
by  express,  from  Baltimore  to  Philadelphia  by  steamboat,  and 
from  Philadelphia  to  this  city  by  our  express,  in  six  hours  and 
twelve  minutes,  notwithstanding  the  bad  situation  of  the  roads. 
We  would  have  been  able  to  lay  it  before  our  readers  at  an 
earlier  hour,  had  not  our  express  between  Baltimore  and  Wash, 
ington  lost  all  his  copies.  As  it  was,  we  have  incurred  an  expense 
of  three  hundred  dollars.' " — Boston  TranscHpt,  Dec.  11,  1830. 


264  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

In  1840  Alvin  Adams  laid  the  foundation  for 
the  business  that  employs  an  army  of  men  to-day, 
and  whose  noisy  wagons  add  materially  to  the 
deafening  "  downtown "  din  in  nearly  every  city 
in  the  United  States.  He  wanted  to  drive  a  stage, 
but  the  agent  told  him  that  he  was  "  meant  for  bet- 
ter things,"  although  the  New  England  stage  driver 
was  a  man  of  importance,  often  driving  his  own 
team. 

Failing  to  find  employment  on  the  road,  young 
Adams  became  a  produce  merchant,  failed,  and  started 
in  the  express  business  with  P.  B.  Burke,  under  the 
name  of  Burke  and  Company. 

Harnden's  friends  said  Adams  was  an  interloper; 
his  own  friends  said  he  was  foolish  to  want  to  divide 
the  business  that  would  scarcely  support  one  man. 
Burke  soon  became  discouraged.  Adams  kept  on,  and 
in  three  years  bought  a  horse. 

The  beginning  of  the  American  Express  Company 
was  when  Henry  Wells  and  George  Pomeroy,  follow- 
ing the  star  of  empire  and  the  Indian,  started  an  ex- 
press west,  between  Albany  and  Buffalo. 

That  was  in  1841.  Like  Burke,  Pomeroy  quit;  but 
"Wells  kept  on,  paying  his  fare  on  the  railroads,  steam- 
boats, and  stages  that  made  the  journey  to  Buffalo  in 
three  nights  and  four  days. 

Nearly  all  the  great  companies  whose  faithful  mes- 
sengers ride  near  the  locomotives  up  and  down  and 
across  the  continent,  standing  in  the  open  door,  re- 
ceiving freight,  and  road  agents,  and  cold  on  their 
lungs,  taking  part  in  wrecks  and  head-end  collisions, 
had  a  humble  beginning. 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OP  THE  EXPRESS  BUSINESS.  265 

The  baggage  express  business  was  originated  by  a 
tailor  named  Arnoux. 

All  there  was  of  "  The  Westcott  Express  Company  " 
in  1851  was  a  one-horse  wagon  with  "  Bob  "  Westcott 
sitting  close  up  to  the  crupper.  To-day  this  company 
handles  nearly  a  million  pieces  of  baggage  per  year. 

In  1853  Henry  Wells,  who  had  been  Harnden's 
original  agent  at  Albany,  with  W.  G.  Fargo  and  others, 
established  what  is  now  the  well-known  firm  of  Wells, 
Fargo  and  Company,  of  California. 

It  had  cost  seventy-five  cents  to  send  a  pound  of 
freight  from  New  York  to  San  Francisco  in  1849  and 
1850.  The  rate  was  still  sixty  cents,  but  Wells,  Fargo 
and  Company  began  business  by  cutting  it  to  forty 
cents.  Among  the  first  board  of  directors  were  D.  N. 
Barney,  afterward  its  president,  and  at  one  time  presi- 
dent of  the  Northern  Pacific  Eailroad,  and  Benjamin 
P.  Cheney,  who  as  a  boy  had  been  a  stage  driver,  then 
proprietor  of  the  stage;  as  a  man  a  railroader,  then 
proprietor  of  the  road,  and  whose  son,  Benjamin 
Cheney,  of  Boston,  is  now  a  director  and  part  owner 
in  a  number  of  Western  railroads. 

At  the  close  of  the  civil  war  there  were  a  number 
of  express  companies,  nearly  all  prosperous.  Some  one 
said  they  were  too  prosperous,  and  organized  "  The 
Merchants'  Union  Express  Company,"  capitalized  at 
twenty  million  dollars.  The  openly  avowed  mission 
on  earth  of  this  philanthropic  institution  was  the  utter 
ruin  of  the  business  of  all  existing  companies,  which, 
though  they  were  competing  sharply  for  business,  were 
thrown  in  a  heap,  in  the  literature  put  out  by  the  new 
organization,  and  called  "  the  old  monopoly.'' 


266  THE  STORY   OP   THE  RAILROAD. 

At  the  end  of  two  years,  having  sunk  seven  milHon 
dollars  and  demoralized  the  business  to  some  extent, 
the  Merchants'  Union  failed,  and  was  absorbed  by  the 
American  Express,  with  William  G.  Fargo  as  president 
of  the  consolidated  company. 

During  the  first  five  years  that  Wells,  Fargo  and 
Company  did  business  in  the  West  they  carried  fifty- 
eight  million  dollars'  worth  of  gold  dust  into  San  Fran- 
cisco. No  other  express  company  in  the  world  has 
Buffered  so  much  at  the  hands  of  road  agents.  They 
began  business  in  the  West  when  the  West  was  wild. 
They  ran,  in  the  early  days,  not  only  an  express  busi- 
ness, but  stages  also,  and  an  extensive  banking  busi- 
ness as  well. 

It  was  at  the  door  of  Wells,  Fargo  and  Company's 
stages  that  the  picturesque  but  always  polite  bandits 
of  Bret  Harte  used  to  doff  their  caps  to  timid  passen- 
gers. Their  stage  roads  ran  over  the  shoulders  of  bleak 
and  desolate  mountains,  in  the  shadows  of  frowning 
cliffs,  and  along  the  tunnels  that  had  been  chopped 
through  the  forests  of  California.  Here  that  mild 
murderer,  the  road  agent,  whose  only  redeeming  qual- 
ity was  his  politeness,  who  did  not  swear  or  smoke, 
in  this  life,  did  his  devilish  work. 

In  fourteen  years  he  had  stopped  four  trains  and 
three  hundred  and  thirteen  stages.  Upon  thirty-four 
occasions  the  stage  failed  to  stop.  During  this  period 
four  drivers  and  two  messengers — those  fearless  guards 
who  set  themselves  on  the  front  seat  as  a  target  for 
the  outlaws — were  killed.  The  robbers  shot  seven 
horses  and  stole  fourteen  from  the  teams.  Despite  the 
fact  that  the  robbers  always  had  the  advantage,  the 


THE   PONY  EXPRESS.  2G7 

brave  guards  succeeded  during  this  time  in  killing  six- 
teen, while  the  Vigilance  Committee  hanged  seven. 
The  total  amount  taken  in  fourteen  years  was  nearly 
a  million  dollars. 

Later,  between  1875  and  1883,  a  single  man,  with 
a  low,  musical  voice  and  a  sawed-off  shotgun,  held  up 
the  stage  of  Wells,  Fargo  and  Company  twenty-eight 
times.  In  view  of  the  fact  that  the  State  and  the 
express  company  had  each  a  standing  reward  for  road 
agents  of  three  hundred  dollars,  with  an  additional 
two  hundred  dollars  from  the  Government  when  the 
mail  was  molested,  this  was  shrewd  work.  The  prompt- 
ness with  which  all  claims  on  this  account  have  been 
met  and  settled  has  ever  inspired  and  confirmed  public 
confidence  in  the  integrity  and  responsibility  of  the 
company. 

The  writer  would  not  give  fulsome  praise  to  the 
express  companies,  yet  it  can  be  stated  as  a  fact  that 
they  have  been  the  most  public-spirited  of  the  great 
corporations  of  this  country,  and  have  managed  their 
business  and  their  employees  with  the  least  possible 
friction.  Many  of  them  (notably  Wells,  Fargo  and 
Company)  have  made  it  a  rule  to  collect  and  forward, 
free  of  charge,  money  donated  to  communities  suffer- 
ing from  contagious  fever,  flood,  or  fire. 

In  1866  the  express  companies  of  the  United  States 
erected  an  imposing  monument  at  the  grave  of  Harn- 
den,  in  Mount  Auburn,  at  Boston. 

Of  all  the  expresses,  the  most  romantic  and  pic- 
turesque was  the  pony  express,  inaugurated  by  William 
H.  Eussell  and  B.  F.  Ficklin  in  1860,  absorbed  later 


268  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

by  Wells,  Fargo  and  Company,  and  abandoned  in  1862, 
when  the  telegraph  line  was  completed  across  the  con- 
tinent. 

Although  in  existence  but  two  years,  the  "  pony  *' 
left  its  footmarks  on  the  plains.  It  established  sta- 
tions which  afterward  became  settlements,  towns,  and 
cities,  and  helped  materially  to  determine  the  practi- 
cability of  the  central  route  for  a  railroad.  It  took  tele- 
grams and  letters  from  the  locomotive  at  St.  Joseph, 
Mo.,  and  delivered  them  to  the  steamboat  at  Sacra- 
mento, which  carried  them  to  the  Golden  Gate.  To 
secure  suitable  horses  and  men,  and  to  establish  sta- 
tions along  the  line,  one  man  had  gone  overland,  and 
another  to  San  Francisco  by  sea,  in  the  fall  of  1859. 
Promptly  at  4  p.  m.  on  the  3d  of  April,  1860,  a  pony 
started  from  either  end  of  the  route.  The  Hannibal 
and  St.  Joseph  Railroad  ran  a  special  train  to  its  ter- 
mini, and  the  people  of  those  outposts  of  civilization 
were  wildly  enthusiastic.  Mr.  Russell  himself  placed 
the  first  mochilas  upon  the  saddle  in  a  momentary 
hush,  in  which  people  plucked  hairs  from  the  tail  of 
the  pony,  and  when  he  bounded  away  toward  the  set- 
ting sun  pretty  girls  threw  kisses  at  the  courier. 

The  path  that  the  pony  was  to  take  lay  due  west 
from  St.  Joseph  to  Fort  Kearney,  up  the  Platte  to 
Julesburg,  thence  by  Fort  Laramie  and  Fort  Bridger 
to  Salt  Tjake  via  Camp  Floyd,  Ruby  Valley,  the  Hum- 
boldt, Carson  City,  Placerville,  and  Folsom  to  Sacra- 
mento. Weekly  trips  were  to  be  made,  and  on  the 
10th  the  second  pony  started  west.  On  the  13th, 
promptly  at  4  p.  M.,  the  first  pony  from  the  Pacific 
landed  at  St.  Joseph,  the  mail  and  messages  having 


THE  PONY  EXPRESS.  2Qd 

crossed  the  two  thousand  miles  of  desert  and  plain  in 
exactly  ten  days  from  San  Francisco.  Subsequently 
the  time  was  shortened  to  eight  days.  At  first  the 
stations  were  twenty-five  miles  apart,  but  the  men  rode 
over  three  divisions.  Later  there  were  but  ten  miles 
between  stations.  Now  the  pony  was  put  to  a  smart 
gallop  at  the  start,  and  finished  with  neck  outstretched 
like  a  racer  coming  under  the  wire.  The  light  rider 
with  his  light  load  leaped  from  the  pony  as  he  braced 
his  feet  for  the  last  stop,  sprang  upon  a  fresh  horse 
that  stood  ready,  prancing  and  pawing,  with  two  men 
at  the  bit.  In  a  little  while  forty  fearless  riders  were 
racing  eastward  and  forty  westward  at  all  hours  of  the 
day  and  night.  Often  when  the  rider  reached  the  end 
of  his  run  he  would  find  the  man  who  was  to  relieve 
him  ill,  wounded,  or  scalped,  or  perhaps  he  would  find 
only  the  black  ruins  of  the  station,  and  would  be  com- 
pelled to  push  on.  One  rider  is  said  to  have  ridden 
three  hundred  miles  in  this  way.  He  had  to  be  lifted 
from  the  saddle,  and  was  unable  to  walk  for  some 
time. 

The  leading  newspapers  of  New  York  and  San 
Francisco  printed  tissue  editions  and  sent  them  by  the 
pony  express  across  the  continent.  The  pony  express 
was  not  a  success  financially,  although  the  "  pony 
postage  "  on  a  letter  that  crossed  the  plains  was  five 
dollars;  but  it  was  picturesque  and  valuable  to  the  pub- 
lic, and  helped  to  blaze  the  way  for  the  swifter,  hardier 
steed  of  steel. 

Thousands  of  people  saw  these  swift  riders  flying 
like  winged  shadows  across  the  continent,  and  among 
them  one  man  Avho  could  paint  for  posterity  wiiat  he 
19 


270  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

saw.     That  man  was  Mark  Twain,  and  this  is  the 
closing  paragraph  of  his  picture: 

"  We  had  had  a  consuming  desire  from  the  begin- 
ning to  see  a  pony  rider,  but  somehow  or  other  all  had 
passed  us,  and  all  that  met  us  managed  to  streak  by 
in  the  night,  and  so  we  heard  only  a  whiz  and  a  hail, 
and  the  swift  phantom  of  the  desert  was  gone  before 
we  could  get  our  heads  out  of  the  windows.  But  now 
we  were  expecting  one  along  every  moment,  and  would 
see  him  in  broad  daylight.  Presently  the  driver  ex- 
claims, 'Here  he  comes!'  Every  neck  is  stretched 
farther  and  every  eye  strained  wider.  Away  across  the 
endless  dead  level  of  the  prairie  a  black  speck  appears 
against  the  sky,  and  it  is  plain  that  it  moves.  Well, 
I  should  think  so!  In  a  second  or  two  it  becomes  a 
horse  and  rider,  rising  and  falling,  rising  and  falling, 
sweeping  toward  us  nearer  and  nearer,  growing  more 
and  more  distinct,  more  and  more  sharply  defined  to 
the  ear;  another  instant  a  whoop  and  a  hurrah  from 
our  upper  deck,  a  wave  of  the  rider's  hand,  but  no 
reply,  and  man  and  horse  burst  past  our  excited  faces 
and  go  winging  away,  like  the  belated  fragment  of  a 
storm." 


CHAPTEE  XXIV. 

THE    WEST   TO-DAY. 

The  West  as  it  was  in  the  beginning  of  this  story 
is  gone.  That  vast  domain,  miscalled  the  American 
Desert,  is  filled  with  homes,  towns,  and  prosperous 
communities.  The  broad  vales  where  the  wild  grass 
waved  are  green  fields,  meadows,  orchards,  and  flower 
gardens.  The  dead,  dry  plains,  that  the  pioneers  found 
furrowed  only  by  the  deep,  narrow  trails  made  by  the 
buffalo  and  the  Indian,  are  crossed  and  checked  and 
barred  by  bands  of  steel,  and  all  along  these  new  trails 
are  thriving  cities/'  The  smoke  of  the  machine  shop, 
smelter,  and  factory  drifts  where  less  than  a  half  cen- 
tury ago  the  signal  fires  of  the  savage  burned  to  call 
the  band  to  the  slaughter  of  a  lone  settler  or  an  emi- 
grant train. 

From  a  single  mining  camp  in  one  small  State  situ- 
ated in  the  very  heart  of  this  "  unwatered  wilderness  " 
they  take  a  million  dollars  in  gold  every  month;  and 
yet  all  the  mineral  mined  within  its  borders  in  twelve 
months  would  not  equal  in  money  value  the  annual 
products  of  the  few  fields,  orchards,  and  gardens  that 
have  been  planted  in  the  plains  and  valleys  of  that 
stony  little  State.  Ninety-five  per  cent  of  the  revenue 
of  the  Pacific  railroads,  projected  and  built  for  the 

271 


272  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

traffic  of  the  Orient,  comes  from  what  is  called  local 
business.  Following  the  smoke  of  the  pioneer  lines, 
dozens  of  systems  of  railroad  have  pushed  their  rails 
into  this  land,  which  at  the  close  of  the  civil  war  was 
considered  uninhabitable.  The  traveller  bound  for 
the  Pacific  coast  has  his  pick  and  choice  of  a  half 
dozen  or  more  routes,  which  for  speed  and  comfort 
can  not  be  equalled  under  the  sun  save  in  America". 
It  would  be  impossible  in  a  single  volume  to  give  even 
a  brief  history  of  the  many  splendid  systems  of  roads 
whose  through  cars,  by  close  traffic  arrangement,  reach 
the  Pacific  coast  States  from  Chicago,  the  great  rail- 
road centre,  without  change.  In  addition  to  the  roads 
already  mentioned,  the  traveller  can  take  the  Manitoba 
or  the  Sunset  route,  or  his  choice  of  a  number  of  splen- 
did roads  between  those  extremes.  Probably  the  most 
extensive  and  important  of  the  newer  roads  whose 
rails  reach  out  beyond  the  Missouri  is  the  Chicago, 
Burlington  and  Quincy.  The  Burlington  and  Mis- 
souri River  Railroad,  a  part  of  the  powerful  Burlington 
system,  has  done  a  great  work  in  helping  to  people  the 
"  desert."  It  has  almost  an  air  line  running  from 
the  capital  of  Nebraska  to  Billings,  in  Montana,  with 
a  branch  north  to  that  famed  mining  camp,  Deadwood, 
in  Dakota.  The  Burlington  has  also  a  splendid 
tliroiigh  line  from  Chicago  to  Denver,  and  the  heart 
of  the  Rockies.  Along  these  rails  rush  the  magnifi- 
cent trains  that  cover  this  one  thousand  miles  in 
twenty-six  hours;  and  side  by  side,  neck  and  neck,  are 
the  Northwestern-Union' Pacific  trains,  equally  hand- 
some, doing  tbe  same  thing  in  the  same  length  of  time. 
The  Burlington  connects  with  the  Denver  and  Rio 


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THE  WEST  TO-DAY.  273 

Grande  at  Denver,  and  by  that  line  and  the  Eio  Grande 
Western  reaches  Ogden,  Utah,  where  connection  is 
made  with  the  Central  Pacific  for  San  Francisco. 

The  Chicago,  Eock  Island  and  Pacific  is  another 
of  the  important  roads  that  has  penetrated  the  plains. 
It  takes  through  traffic  via  Colorado  Springs,  where 
it  connects  with  the  Colorado  Midland,  until  lately 
a  part  of  the  Santa  Fe  system. 

The  Wabash,  Alton,  the  Illinois  Central,  and  other 
roads  carry  people  via  St.  Louis,  and  sometimes  as  far 
south  as  New  Orleans,  and  then  send  them  flying  across 
to  the  coast  by  the  Missouri  Pacific,  or  down  over 
the  Iron  Mountain,  and  the  International  and  Great 
Northerns,  and  Texas  Pacific,  or  by  the  Southern  Pa- 
cific's famous  "  Sunset  Limited." 

Far  to  the  north  the  Great  Northern — "  Jim  Hill's 
road,"  as  it  is  familiarly  known  among  railroad  men — 
takes  traffic  from  any  and  all  roads  at  St.  Paul,  and 
drives  a  paying  business  through  what  the  early  road 
projectors  used  to  call  "the  frozen  North."  This  is 
to-day  one  of  the  most  prosperous  roads  in  all  the 
West. 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  the  West  is  now  able  to 
support  a  number  of  roads.  True,  they  are  not  all 
making  money,  but  they  are  all  helping  to  settle  up 
and  develop  a  section  of  country  that  was  once  con- 
sidered fit  only  for  the  home  of  the  savage  and  a  place 
for  criminals  to  hide  in. 

It  is  only  by  comparison  that  we  can  arrive  at  a 
full  appreciation  of  what  the  railroad  has  wrought  in 
the  West.  When  the  Zion-bound  pilgrims  pulled  their 
handcarts  across  the  plains  and  over  the  Utah  desert 


274  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

there  were  no  trails  but  those  of  the  buffalo.  The  trap- 
pers and  hunters  followed  the  streams,  while  the  In- 
dians may  be  said  to  have  wandered  aimlessly  over  the 
face  of  the  earth. 

Following  the  handcarts  of  the  Mormons  came  the 
ox  teams  of  Eussell,  Majors  and  Company,  taking 
supplies  to  the  army  in  Utah.  And  it  used  to  take 
them  from  twenty  to  thirty  days  to  drag  the  wag- 
ons from  the  river  to  Fort  Kearney,  three  hundred 
miles. 

A  few  years  later  the  Overland  Mail  Company 
transferred  their  post  coaches  from  the  southern  to 
this  the  central  route,  and  then  the  dust  began  to  fly. 
The  stage  coaches  soon  overhauled  the  pilgrims  and 
the  stage  driver,  and  station  hands,  one  writer  tells 
us,  began  to  make  trouble  for  the  Mormons  by  marry- 
ing "  off  wheelers,"  "  nigh  leaders,"  and  "  swing  girls  " 
out  of  the  handcart  teams. 

After  "roughing  it"  across  the  continent  in  one 
of  these  rock-a-bye  wagons,  Mark  Twain  wrote: 

"  How  the  frantic  animals  did  scamper!  It  was  a 
fierce  and  furious  gallop,  and  the  gait  never  altered 
for  a  moment  till  we  reeled  off  ten  or  twelve  miles 
and  swept  up  to  the  next  collection  of  little  station 
huts  and  stables. 

"  At  4  p.  M.  we  crossed  a  branch  of  the  river,  and 
at  5  P.  M.  we  crossed  the  Platte  itself  and  landed  at 
Kearney,  fifty-six  hours  from  St.  Joe,  three  hundred 
miles.'^ 

Looking  back  at  the  bull  team,  that  was  simply 
flying. 

A  few  years  later  an  enthusiast  who  crossed  the 


THE  WEST  TO-DAY.  275 

plains  on  one  of  the  early  "  Golden  Gate "  express 
trains  wrote  the  New  York  Times: 

"  At  4  p.  M.  Sunday  we  rolled  out  of  the  station 
at  Omaha  and  started  on  our  long  jaunt."  Then  fol- 
lowed a  lengthy  description  of  the  ride,  of  the  writer's 
first  dinner  "  in  one  of  Pullman's  hotels  on  wheels," 
where  they  drank  champagne  at  thirty  miles  an  hour, 
"  and  never  spilled  a  drop." 

''  After  dinner,"  the  traveller  tells  us,  "  we  repaired 
to  our  drawing-room  car  and  intoned  that  grand  old 
hymn,  Praise  God  from  whom  all  blessings  flow.  Then 
to  bed  in  luxurious  coaches,  where  we  slept  the  sleep 
of  the  just,  and  only  awoke  the  next  morning  (Mon- 
day) at  eight  o'clock,  to  find  ourselves  at  the  cross- 
ing of  the  North  Platte,  fifteen  hours  and  forty  min- 
utes out  from  Omaha,  three  hundred  miles." 

That  must  have  made  Ben  Holliday's  crack  stage 
drivers  wish  they  had  never  been. 

How  do  they  do  this  three  hundred  miles  of  desert 
to-day?  The  reader  can  enter  a  sleeper  coupled  to 
the  fast  mail  leaving  Omaha  at  6  p.  m.  and  stand  almost 
at  the  foot  of  Pike's  Peak,  at  the  other  edge  of  the 
"  desert,"  when  the  sun  is  coming  out  of  the  plains  on 
the  following  morning.  At  midnight  he  will  have 
crossed  the  Platte,  making  the  oft-travelled  "  three 
hundred  miles  "  in  six  hours.  That  beats  the  early 
express  as  badly  as  that  train  beat  the  stage,  or  as  the 
stage  beat  the  freighters. 

If  you  care  to  carry  the  comparison  a  few  thousand 
years  back  of  the  bull  team,  it  took  Moses  forty  years 
to  put  three  hundred  miles  of  desert  behind  him. 

Wonderful,  indeed,  are  the  changes  that  have  taken 


276  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

place  out  there  within  a  third  of  a  century.  Far 
greater  than  any  change  in  the  character  of  the  coun- 
try and  the  mode  and  comforts  of  travel  is  the  change 
in  the  character  of  the  people  who  inhabit  the  far 
West  to-day.  One  may  not  paint  a  pretty  picture  of 
the  "West  in  the  days  of  the  stage  coach  and  the  pony 
express.  Here  and  there  you  meet  a  cattleman,  a  miner, 
a  mining  engineer,  or  a  missionary,  but  a  majority  of 
the  people  you  passed  on  the  trail  were  criminals.  The 
division  superintendent  on  the  stage  line  might  be  a 
gentleman  or  an  outlaw,  or  both,  according  to  the  re- 
quirements of  the  division.  When  the  stage  stopped 
at  a  station,  an  assassin  brought  out  the  fresh  horses, 
while  perhaps  a  road  agent  off  duty  led  the  tired  team 
away.  When  you  sat  to  dinner  at  the  stage  station, 
you  were  apt  to  find  a  desperado  at  the  head  of  the 
table.  A  half-breed  raised  on  the  warpath  admired 
your  beautiful  hair,  or  silently  cursed  you  for  being 
bald,  while  he  poured  coffee.  A  horse  thief  carried 
the  dishes  away  and  threw  the  crumbs  into  the  face 
of  a  filthy  Goshoot  Indian,  who,  until  the  stage  line 
was  opened,  had  been  hanging  on  the  edge  of  the 
desert  waiting,  along  with  that  four-legged  outcast, 
the  coyote,  for  something  to  die. 

These  Indians  were  too  indolent  to  band  together. 
They  had  no  tribe  and  no  village.  Too  lazy  to  carry 
a  bow  and  arrow,  they  slunk,  filthy  as  swine,  by  the 
trail,  competing  with  the  vulture  for  a  living.  Other 
Indians,  more  ambitious,  would  lie  in  wait  for  the 
stage,  which  travelled  clay  and  night,  and  "rub  the 
whites  all  out."  And  then  there  were  always  the  white, 
or  half  white,  savages — road  agents  and  other  assas- 


THE  WEST  TO-DAY.  277 

sins.  Highway  robbery  was  practised  apparently  for 
pastime  by  some  of  these  wolves.  One  division  became 
so  unsafe  that  the  stage  company  was  obliged  to  install 
a  notorious  outlaw  in  the  ofhce  of  division  superin- 
tendent. He  filled  the  position,  and  fitted  into  the 
community  beautifully.  Where  there  had  been  whole- 
sale horse  stealing,  stabbing  in  the  dark,  and  shooting 
by  day,  he  quieted  the  "  hands  "  down,  and  when  he 
was  removed  to  reform  another  division  he  left  behind 
him  a  reorganized  force,  tranquillity,  and  a  graveyard. 
Even  the  Indians,  whole  tribes  of  them,  dreaded  and 
respected  this  man,  and  the  stage  started  by  him  usu- 
ally went  through  on  time.  He  was  ever  loyal  to  his 
employer^  and  if  the  outlaws,  thieves,  and  murderers 
imposed  upon  or  abused  the  few  honest  helpers  em- 
ployed about  the  station,  he  shot  them  down  as  he 
would  have  shot  wolves  among  the  stock.  He  was  a 
most  useful  man  in  his  day,  but  the  constant  bathing 
in  blood  hardened  him.  He  took  to  drink  and  to  in- 
discriminate killing  of  people  who  did  not  deserve  it, 
who  were  not  even  in  the  employ  of  the  stage  company. 
Finally  he  tore  up  a  summons  sent  him  by  a  Cali- 
fornia vigilance  committee,  and  they  arrested  him. 
He  was  counted  one  of  the  bravest  men  that  ever  saw 
the  West,  being  utterly  indifferent  to  danger.  He  had 
sent  dozens  of  men  into  the  unknown — some  of  them 
the  hardest  that  that  hard  country  had  produced — 
but  when  his  time  came,  when  they  put  the  awful 
noose  about  his  neck,  and  he  stood  at  the  open  door 
of  death,  he  wept  and  begged,  and  perished  miserably. 
These  unpleasant  pictures  are  shown  to  bring  the 
reader  to  a  full  appreciation  of  the  condition  of  the 


278  THE  STORY  OP  THE  RAILROAD. 

country  when  our  hero,  the  locating  engineer,  entered 
it.  There  was  no  legal  restraint  there,  no  coroner's 
jury  to  come  nosing  around  asking  awkward  ques- 
tions. It  was  not  that  the  West  was  bad,  but  because 
it  was  wild  and  wide,  for  many  of  the  outlaws,  like 
our  superintendent,  had  been  reared  in  the  States, 
within  the  sound  of  a  church  bell,  and  had  gone  to 
the  wilderness  to  lose  themselves.  The  pathfinders 
who  first  went  out  to  find  a  way  for  the  railroad,  and 
many  who  followed  them,  found  the  West  a  veritable 
hell,  filled  with  wild  beasts  and  wilder  men.  When 
the  road  makers  followed  with  an  army  of  workmen, 
many  of  them  reckless,  and  some  of  them  desperate, 
they  built  the  temporary  communities,  full  of  lust 
and  gold,  that  were  so  graphically  and  powerfully  de- 
scribed by  Mr.  Stevenson.  When  these  heroic  pioneers 
pushed  on  toward  the  Pacific  they  left  an  unbroken 
line  of  railroad  behind  them,  reaching  back  to  civiliza- 
tion, and  a  broken  line  of  graves. 

The  towns  that  sprang  up  along  the  line  and  the 
mining  camps  that  were  opened  by  the  railroad  were 
wicked  places  for  a  time.  The  men  were  all  murdered 
who  filled  the  first  twenty-six  graves  at  Virginia  City, 
Nev.,  and  the  place  was  not  reckoned  uncommonly 
tough  at  the  time.  Many  good  men,  as  well  as  bad 
ones,  went  down  in  tlie  fight  for  the  West.  It  cost 
blood  to  conquer  the  country,  but  what  is  Cuba  to  this? 
What  is  all  the  kingdom  of  Spain,  compared  with  the 
vast  empire  that  was  thrown  open  when  the  last  spike 
was  driven  in  the  first  Pacific  railroad? 

The  bad  Indian  and  the  outlaw  shrank  from  the 
glare  of  the  headlight  of  that  great  civilizcr,  the  loco- 


THE  WEST  TO-DAY.  279 

motive.  In  a  little  while  the  bad  man  was  pushed 
aside  or  trampled  upon  by  the  vast  army  of  honest, 
fearless,  fair-fighting  young  men,  the  flower  of  this  fair 
land,  the  bravest,  best  blood  of  the  civilized  world, 
who  had  come  out  to  help  develop  the  West  that  had 
been  opened  by  the  daring  railroad  engineer. 

Presently  the  lawyer  came  to  this  lawless  land, 
the  life  insurance  agent,  the  preacher,  and  the  play- 
actor, and  finally  a  man  and  his  wife — Martha  and 
"  Martha's  younkit " — and  all  the  miners  dropped 
their  tools  and  went  down  to  the  camp  at  the  bottom 
of  the  gulch  to  see  the  woman.  Stubble-faced  men 
gave  small  sacks  of  gold  dust  for  the  privilege  of  "  kiss- 
in'  the  kid." 

By-and-bye,  when  the  good  red  man  got  used  to 
the  whistle  of  the  locomotive,  he  came  into  the  camp 
that  the  white  man  had  made,  and  learned  to  work  in 
the  shops  and  mines. 

The  worthless  Indian  has  perished — gone  with  the 
buffalo,  the  bad  man,  the  stage  coach,  and  the  desert, 
for  there  is  no  desert  now.  Where  a  little  while  ago 
the  sage  and  cactus  grew,  June  roses  bloom  to-day. 
All  this  change  has  come  about  since  the  West  was 
awakened  by  the  first  wild  scream  of  the  locomotive 
and  the  sun-dried  plain  was  made  to  tremble  under  its 
whirling  wheels.  A  thousand  years  of  bull  teams, 
handcarts,  and  pack  trains  could  not  have  wrought 
what  the  railroad  achieved  here  in  a  quarter  of  a 
century. 

The  grand,  glorious,  and  still  growing  West  could 
not  have  been  made  but  for  the  railroad,  and  the  rail- 
road could  only  be  built  by  the  dauntless  pioneers  who 


280  THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAILROAD. 

set  their  faces  to  the  wilderness  and  held  them  there 
for  five  weary  years,  nor  turned  nor  glanced  back  until 
the  trail  had  been  blazed  and  their  tired  feet  felt  the 
moist,  cool  sands  of  the  Pacific.  When  the  graders  fol- 
lowed and  the  work  was  finished,  two  thousand  miles 
of  rails  reached  from  the  edge  of  civilization  to  the 
Golden  Gate. 

Many  were  missing  when  the  roll  was  called.  Some 
were  sleeping  in  the  broad  prairies  where  the  wild  grass 
waved,  some  among  the  desert  dunes,  and  others  in 
the  mountain  passes.  As  I  write  this  last  page  my 
countrymen  are  moistening  two  sides  of  the  earth  with 
their  blood.  These  are  heroes,  and  so  were  those  pio- 
neers who  perished  fighting  for  that  magnificent  West, 
the  pride  and  glory  of  America. 


(S) 


THE  END. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

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